New Shores complete rewrite,english version
by Warringer
Summary: What can I say...Some people have told me that the old version isn't that good. They are right. So...here's the rewrite. Uploaded Ch3
1. Chapter 1

New Shores  
  
AWarringer  
  
Disclaimer:   
Nothing in here belongs to me, except for the story.  
PERRY RHODAN belongs to the Pabel-Moewing-Verlagsunion.  
Ranma 1/2 belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.  
Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi.  
Tenchi Myou belongs to A. I. C. and to Pioneer.  
Infinity's Shore belongs to James Barnhill. I've used it with his permission.  
Chapter one  
  
The past never forgets  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
Report Ranma Saotome:  
  
I looked out of the glider, as it neared the space port of the terran fleet in Terrania. And it was drawn by one ship, which dwarfed every other ship on the space port, with the exception of the 'Crest IV', a replica for a museum. It was even larger than the ships of the Discoverer-class super dreadnaughts, each one a sphere of 1.8 kilometer diameter. This ship was my ship, the 'Marco Polo', build and named after the most famous ship ever build by humans. Only two ships where more famous than the first 'Marco Polo' and they still existed, the 'Sol' and the 'Basis'.  
  
The 'Marco Polo' is a ship that was build after the war with the Inquisition of Reason, twelve years ago in 1312 NGC. A 2.5 kilometer diameter ultra dreadnaught, with a ring around the equator, specially builds for warfare behind enemy lines. She is able to support a small fleet of twenty ships over more than three years. I have to say that the 'Marco Polo' is not the first ship under my command. First I was the commander of the 'Yamato', an Odin-class battle cruiser, of the planetary home fleet of Azura. Sometimes I miss the 'Yamato' but a least I have to say that she is part of my small fleet. Together with another ship from Azura, the heavy cruiser 'Hayabusa', and three ships from NewPreussen, the battle bruiser 'Graf Spee' and the two heavy cruisers 'Gneisenau' and 'Scharenhorst'.  
  
To command a space ship was my dream, ever since I first awoke in this universe. You see I wasn't born in this universe, but in another. 54 years ago I was thrown into this universe by Sailor Pluto, a woman I thought would be my friend. But she tried to kill me with a magical attack. Only because I held a magical device, the Nanban Mirror in front of me to catch the attack, I was able to survive. But I awoke in a medical center after a coma of nearly three month, with one arm lost.  
  
Since than I lived here and found my happiness. Well, until my wife died and left me and our daughter behind. Sometimes I want to kill the guy who killed her in a glider crash, but he died in the crash.  
  
I sighed. I'm not really over her death, but I can live with the pain.  
  
The glider neared the 'Marco Polo' and flew into one of the many hangars. I got of the glider and went to my first officer, Ian Zarkov, a terran born in Moscow. He snapped to attention. I had to suppress a groan.  
  
"Captain on deck!" he screamed.  
  
I sighed. He had seen to much of these old cheesy trivid movies.  
  
"Ian, forget that whole crap. You know that I don't like it."  
  
He grinned.  
  
"I know. Why do you think I do it?"  
  
I glared at him.  
  
"Everything okay?"  
  
He nodded.  
  
"Everything is okay. We are ready to leave Terra and go on our small tour."  
  
Again I had to suppress a groan. I hate to do public relation operations. Land on one of the main systems of the LFT, the Hunhay'Tussan or the Forum Ranglund, do diplomatic work and so on. What would I do for a nice fight to find the limits of my ship.  
  
"When do we start?"  
  
"When we reach Command. We have permission for lift off."  
  
We entered one of the many transmitter rooms in the ship and stepped into the black nothingness of a transmitter. We where ripped into atoms and set back together on the receiving transmitter. The pain of the de- and rematerialisation was something the body gets used to and could be ignored. We stepped into Command, the bridge of the 'Marco Polo'. It was a semicircle with a height of eight meter and a diameter of fifteen meter. In the center of Command it had a small platform, with the seat and console of the commander, the first officer and the first pilot. In our case, we had three emotionauts, specially trained pilots, who could link directly with the ships computer and control it directly with their mind.  
  
We went directly to the platform and I smiled, when I looked around. I saw into the faces of my command crew. I sat down and smirked at the first pilot. Nadja McIntrey smiled back.  
  
"Bring this baby into space."  
  
"Yes, sir," she said and I had to laugh at the 'Sir'.  
  
There is nothing like a command chain in the past nowadays, but the efficiency of the fleet has increased since than. I looked at a hologram that floated in front of me. It showed the 'Marco Polo' from the outside. I like it to watch the lift off of a ship from an outside perspective.  
  
The bulk of the ship was slowly lifted off the ground by gigantic antigravity drives and floated into the sky with a moderate speed, which had to stir the air around the ship. As the ship was five hundred meter over the ground, the hydraulic landing gear slowly retracted. Than two kilometer over the ground, the atmospheric drives in the ring activated and the ship accelerated. We only needed four minutes to reach the outer rim of the terran atmosphere and enter free space.  
  
Some minutes later the five other ships lifted off and met us one thousand kilometer above Terra. I heard the voice of the operations officer of my crew, May-Lin'Hay, a terra-born kartanin. Sure she is a feline, but I had an intensive psychotherapy to help against my problems with cats and other felines.  
  
"Terra Control, this is the 'Marco Polo'. We await permission to leave the solar system."  
  
"'Marco Polo', Terra Control. You have permission to leave the solar system and accelerate with 200 kps² until you reach the velocity to enter hyperspace."  
  
"Affirmative, Terra Control."  
  
She nodded towards Nadja and in the sub light drives awoke to life to accelerate the ship towards half the speed of light.  
  
The ship was six minutes into the acceleration and on one fourth of the speed of light, when it happened.  
  
"Emergency broadcast from Venus," I heard May-Lin scream.  
  
A Hologram appeared in front of me. It showed the face of a young human. His face showed fear.  
  
"This is freighter FX-345. We are attacked by unknown forces. We request help."  
  
A second hologram appeared and showed a sensory diagram of the solar system. The position of the freighter was highlighted. Near the ship there was an energy signature that looked like a small back hole. I zoomed in the diagram, so that I could see the exact surroundings of the freighter and the energy signature. Than it happened. Other energy signatures where pouring out of the black hole. Each signature had an energy output that looked like that of a dreadnaught.  
  
With that the command center of the system security went to system wide alert and every ship of the fleet that was in the system speeded towards the position of the ship. At the same time the pouring out of the black hole stopped by a ship count of unknown 2000 ships and one of the weapons satellites that where orbiting Sol had the first optical image of the ships.  
  
I think I was the only one who was able to compare the ship to ships I had seen in an anime in my home universe. Well, maybe the Azura are able to compare the ships too, since they are the descendants of Japanese colonists. The ships looked like Zentraedi ships from Macross. And we had 2000 of these ships in our system. And every ship had the image of a crystal on the hull. I swear that I had seen that crystal somewhere.  
  
"Nadja, we change course towards the position of the freighter. Accelerate to 800 kps² and enter hyperspace."  
  
Nadja nodded under the hood of the SERT system, which she needed to connect to the ship as emotionaut. The other ships of my fleet followed. After only 1 minute and 36 seconds the 'Marco Polo' entered hyperspace and fell back to normal space in a short amount of time that only computer where able to measure. We where on the other side if Sol and surrounded by other ships of the terran fleet. The freighter was history, blown out of space by the weapons of the unknown ships. One of the ships in the terran fleet was the 'Leif Eriksson', the flagship of the LFT.  
  
Our ships tried to contact the unknown ships but they simply didn't answer. I don't know why, but something in me said that this would be a changing point of my life.  
  
Than the unknown fleet began to move towards Terra, surrounded by 12.000 terran ships. We had the superior forces with six to one ships.  
  
Than the fleet disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the sun. They used hyperspace like we do, but at a slower pace. We followed them and let them enter orbit around Terra. I knew that every ship had looked the unknown ships with their targeting systems, together with the defensive satellites in terran orbit and heavy cannons on the surface of the planet. Terra was target of many assaults in the last decades, so that the defensive systems where upgraded.  
  
As all of the ships had entered a specific orbit and seemed to be in some kind of position, all ships began to jam radio and send a transmission.  
  
"People on earth," a voice said," Praise, as for the age of absolute peace and happiness will come to thee. This planet will be the first to receive the gift of my queen."  
  
I felt my jaw hit the deck. That was impossible! I looked at the hologram that showed the image of a man I hoped never to see again. The man on the image was Ryoga Hibiki, one of the traitors, who had done nothing to prevent Pluto from her attack. I could feel that my old hatred form them came back.  
  
"Praise, as for you will be the first ones that will receive the ultimate gift of the gods."  
  
"Cut the transmission!" I screamed," Give me a connection to the 'Eriksson'."  
  
I tried to suppress my hatred and my anger, as a hologram appeared in front of me. It showed the Solar Resident Perry Rhodan. He was some kind of prime minister of the League of Free Terrans, LFT. I knew him from my duty on the 'Eriksson'.  
  
"Perry, we need permission to fire."  
  
Rhodan looked bewildered and stared at me.  
  
"What?"  
  
I stared back.  
  
"Do you want that every single individual on Terra becomes a mindless drone? That is what Hibiki wants."  
  
"How do you know?"  
  
His stare intensified.  
  
"He is from my home universe. He stood on the sidelines, when I was sent here."  
  
While I was talking to Rhodan, the 2000 ships of Crystal Tokyo began to emit some kind of energy beams that connected to every neighbor ship. Between the beams a milky white glow appeared.  
  
"Perry, we have to, before it is too late."  
  
He seemed to think about it. The glow intensified. Than he ended the connection and reappeared on another, where he gave the order to fire at will.  
  
A blue glowing sphere appeared between the planet and the glowing field, as Terra activated its planetary paratron shield. Black rifts began to open between the glow and the shield as if the shield would throw energy into hyperspace. The glow only intensified. Than the first ship fired its weapons onto the first enemy ship, followed by all other terran ship, the satellites and surfaced weapons.  
  
The main weapon of every terran ship is the transform cannon, since more than 3000 years. They are a kind of projectile weapon, which used an external inducted teleportation to materialize a projectile in an enemy's ship or in the shielding of them. In most cases these projectiles are heavy thermonuclear bomb with up to 4000 GT, other types of bombs have up to 10.000 GT. The only problem is that these calibers are damaging the space-time-continuum. And near a planet we can't simply fire with these calibers. It would destroy the planet or change its orbit.  
  
The other problem was that the bombs where not materializing. Every salve of the transform cannons simply disappeared. Every other weapon was simply swallowed by the enemy's shields.  
  
Then the enemy shoot back. Every single salve from them slammed into the paratrons of our ships and penetrated them like nothing. That has to say something since a ship with activated paratrons can fly into the corona of a star and under the surface and survive. One terran ship after another was destroyed by the enemy.  
  
Only the 'Marco Polo' and the other five ships of my fleet where able to shrug the weapons energy off, since we had a new shielding system that was a hybrid of the paratron shield and the energetic paradim armor, the paradim shield. Five minutes into the fight the enemy had lost one single ship and we had lost over 1500 ships.  
  
"The PDP-cannons!" I said and gave the permission to use the most powerful conventional weapon.  
  
The Paradim Penetration cannon was a weapon designed to penetrate the paradim armor and was able to penetrate every other shielding system up to date. The two PDP-cannons awoke to life and fired. Two ultra short energetic shock fronts, focused by a paratron like energy tube slammed into the shields of the targeted ship and penetrated the shields without problem. The shock fronts shook the ship and disintegrated parts of the hull and engine section. Where the enemy ship was hit, a small sun lit up for a short amount of time, as the reactors of the ship where blowing up.  
  
Other ship with PDP-cannons where following our example and fired their weapons. After other five minutes only one ship was left and fled towards the black hole. I didn't wait and the 'Marco Polo' speed after the ship. I suspected that Hibiki was on board that ship.  
  
Before his ship could enter the hyperspace, the 'Marco Polo', the 'Yamato', the 'Hayabusa', the 'Graf Spee', the 'Scharenhorst' and the 'Gneisenau' where in hyperspace and fell back into normal space in front of the enemy ship. We fired multiple salvos to the suggested entry point of the ship, but Hibiki's ship fell back to normal space only 10.000 kilometer away from the black hole and entered it, without a scratch.  
  
"We follow the ship," I said.  
  
With that my six ships entered the black hole and that was the beginning of a command operation in terran tradition. We go in, without to know what to expect, make plans on the way and still survive without a scratch.  
  
The transit through was surprisingly short. As we reached normal space, the black hole collapsed behind us and we where surrounded by thousands of enemy ships. A short check for our position showed us that we where in the solar system of this universe. I heard several people swallowing.  
  
"May-Lin, massage to the other ships," I said," Everyone for himself. We meet at point 'Kartago's fall'."  
  
With that the six ships spread and began to fire at the enemy ships. We seemed to have a surprise bonus as we exited the black hole. The enemy ships needed several seconds to register what happened. Than they fired back. I don't know why, but it looks like their weapons where calibrated to penetrate our paratron shield, because they where not powerful enough to penetrate it under normal circumstances.  
  
But the sheer number of ships was enough to get the shields up to a strain of 99 percent. The shield would be able to take a strain up to 150 percent for one minute and than collapse. I continued to give commands in a speed that surprised myself. Even with a maximum acceleration of 990 kps² we had problems to reach half the speed of light to enter hyperspace, since enemy ships where flying directly into our course and Nadja had to avoid them. We had destroyed nearly 50 ships when the 'Marco Polo' had reached half the speed of light and entered hyperspace.  
  
"Damage report," I said.  
  
The computer of Command created a hologram where I could see the damages. Nothing out of the ordinary. Some destroyed energy nodes, one short-circuited paratron and other minor damages. And no serious injuries on the crew, with the exception of bruises and scratches. I inhaled deep.  
  
"Reentry of normal space in six seconds," the voice of the computer said.  
  
I tensed. I hope every ship made it to the point 'Kartago's fall'. It was a historic retreat point, where the solar fleet gathered after the fall of the solar system in 1303 NGC, as the arkonians invaded Terra. Later they left Terra, after the war ended.  
  
The 'Marco Polo' fell back into normal space and stopped. The sensory systems where scanning space around us. A new sensory system was scanning hyperspace and waited that five signals where entering the maximum scanning range. We didn't had to wait for long.  
  
------------------------------------------.  
  
Interlude 1:  
  
Ryoga Hibiki left his flagship and went directly into the throne room. He wasn't thrilled to went to the Queen and state that his operation was a failure. He and Mercury had planned this operation for more than a century and it still went wrong. He stood before his Queen.  
  
"My Queen," he said and bowed.  
  
Queen Serenity leveled a glare at him.  
  
"Do you have to say something?" she asked.  
  
"No, My Queen. I can't think about one reason that my operation was a failure."  
  
Sailor Mercury stepped forward and looked at the still bowing Hibiki.  
  
"What went wrong?"  
  
"The terrans activated their planetary shielding, like we expected. But they opened fire before we where able to penetrate the shield with the 'Cleansing'. Rhodan reaction didn't match with his psychological profile. Than they used a new weapon to penetrate our shields. The modulation of our shields was ineffective to repel the new weapon."  
  
Mercury nodded.  
  
"We had to expect that, since it was more than fifteen years ago, that we were able to send our agents into their universe."  
  
"Continue," the queen said.  
  
"And like we expected our weapons where able to penetrate their shields and destroy their ships with one or two shots, but there were six ships that had a new shielding. And they had two new classes of ships. Ships with a diameter of 1.8 and 2.5 kilometer."  
  
He stopped for a short time and continued.  
  
"The six ships with the new shields where able to follow us here."  
  
Queen Serenity glared at Hibiki and than at Mercury.  
  
"Your operation is canceled," she said and the two looked at her strangely," until these ships are destroyed or in our hand. I would prefer to can get them in one piece."  
  
The two nodded.  
  
"Than we would be able to understand their technology," Mercury stated," crush the Resistance and bring absolute peace to the other universe."  
  
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Report Ranma Saotome:  
  
My other ships where in a desolate condition. While the 'Marco Polo' had fled without any damages, the heavy cruisers had hull breaches and destroyed shield generators and other destructed systems. The battle cruisers left the battle in a better condition, but they where still in a bad condition. It would need some time until the ships where back to full operational.  
  
I gave my orders and the five ships where landing in special bays. These bays where one of the systems of the 'Marco Polo', since they consisted of energy that was condensed to matter. The repair crews and the internal factories of the 'Marco Polo' where working full time to repair the ship as fast as possible.  
  
I looked at a hologram with the causalities of the other ships. 102 men and women wouldn't return to their families. And I knew one or two of them from my command of the 'Yamato'. I closed my eyes.  
  
"Damn."  
  
Than I heard the door chime of my ready room.  
  
"Come in," I said.  
  
The door opened and an arkonian and a terran came in. They sat down in front of me. Benjameen da Jacinta, a minor arkonian noble, who choose to take LFT citizenship, and Tess Qumisha, a terran physician, who was his wife. They were both VIP's and took part in the most major terran operations in the last fifteen years.  
  
"And again we are somewhere, where we shouldn't be," Ben said.  
  
I groaned and looked at him.  
  
"And again we have a typical terran operations plan," he continued," 'Butt in, find out what I wrong and correct it, with a minimal effort.'"  
  
That comment resulted in an elbow into his side by Tess.  
  
"You have to complain, Ben," I answered," As if you had no part in the operation that was the beginning of the end for the Inquisition, you booty terran."  
  
He grinned.  
  
"So? What's that to you?"  
  
He got a second elbow into his side. I had to chuckle.  
  
"I know exactly what awaits us. This is my home universe."  
  
The two stared at me. I shrugged.  
  
"It's true. One of the people, who initiated the attack, had sent me into my new home. And the guy on the hologram before the battle. He was some kind of friend for me, before I was sent away."  
  
I raised my left arm. You could hear the low whining sound of servomotors in the arm.  
  
"Because of them I lost my arm."  
  
The door to my room opened a second time and a second set of two people came in. My chief scientist and my chief engineer.  
  
The chief scientist was a tall woman. She was my daughter Tijana. She had the body and face of my female side and the white hair and red eyes of her arkonian mother. She was wearing a white tank top, white jeans and white sneakers. It was something of a trademark outfit, like the red and black outfit I wore in the past. She was one of the best scientists in the LFT.  
  
The chief engineer was a normal ferron male. His people where, like most humanoids including terrans, of lemurian descendant. He had the copper colored hair, light blue colored skin and stocky build of his people. His name was Jakus and he had a grumpy personality. He was the best engineer that I could imagine for my ship.  
  
"Dad," Tijana said," We are in deep shit."  
  
I shot her a glare.  
  
"Don't tell."  
  
I looked at Jakus.  
  
"How long, 'til the ships are back to full operational?"  
  
He sighed.  
  
"Three days at most. All of my crews are busy to repair the most needed systems like shielding and propulsion. And even for that we will need up to one day."  
  
I slumped down a bit.  
  
"Damn, I need them."  
  
I thought a bit over it.  
  
"Could you raid the light cruisers? Or at least the corvettes?"  
  
"Hm, I think we could speed it up that way to at least one third of the normal time."  
  
"Than do it. I need them back ASAP."  
  
He nodded and took out a PAD. The 'Marco Polo' was a carrier ship. The hangars are holding 60 light cruisers with 100 meter diameter and 60 corvettes with 60 meter diameter, with several hundred Space Jets and other small ships.  
  
I looked at Tijana.  
  
"And what can you say?"  
  
She breathed in deep.  
  
"Only that I have absolutely no idea where I should begin to look. We simply have not one sensory system that was able to get a good scan of the enemies shields and some of the weapons. Every scan is indicating some energy in the higher bands of the hyper-dimensional spectrum. And we don't have the necessary systems to get a scan in these bands."  
  
I raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Can you build one?"  
  
She laughed like I had made some silly joke.  
  
"We don't have the necessary crystals and systems to build these systems. The only thing I could do would be to raid one of the PDP-cannons to get the right crystals."  
  
I shook my head.  
  
"No. But do what you can."  
  
She nodded. I let my head fall a bit.  
  
"Go back to your stations. I have to think."  
  
They nodded, rose and left the ready room.  
  
Damn, what can I do? This is nearly like in the old days. I got myself involved into something I have absolutely no idea how to get through.  
  
----------------------------------.  
  
Interlude 2:  
  
Hotaru Tome, aka Sailor Saturn, looked over the city of Crystal Tokyo and sighed. She had helped to build this city and the beginnings of the Solar Empire. But after the first two hundred years after the founding of the Solar Empire and the first cleansing of earth, something had changed her old friends. Usagi, Queen Serenity nowadays, had changed the most. Gone was the airhead of her youth, to make place for a Queen. But a what cost? After the founding of the first colonies in other systems, the humans in these colonies where looking for independence from Crystal Tokyo. Serenity had answered with a cleansing. Not like the first one that only had made the humans a bit more happy and destroyed the means of genetical diseases, the second cleansing had made the humans in the colonies more like happy zombies. Okay, they had something of a independent streak, but it was no real independence of thought. They had become two dimensional beings that where happy every time in their lives.  
  
After the cleansing of the colonies, she had cleansed earth again. That was the first time, where Hotaru got the first doubts on Serenity's sanity. The years after that only made the doubts grow slightly. Even at the time of the first Crusade to bring 'absolute peace' to the galaxy, she had thought that Serenity had done the right thing. But than the first genocides on alien species had begun, with the excuse that the non-humanoids where evil, and the first projects to genetically alter humanoids to resemble a human, she had thrown away her believe in the sanity of Serenity.  
  
About the other Senshi? Or the others? Pha. They where not exactly insane like Serenity, but they where faithful in her. She no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. They simply didn't believe that the big Queen could NOT do the right thing.  
  
Herself? She was only playing a role for the others, waiting for the right time to leave the Empire for ever and begin to work against it with the Resistance. But she wasn't able to do it. If Sailor Pluto would be able to warn Serenity and the others, she would be dead. But since the fight near Venus with the six ships from the other universe her hope was rising. And she felt that something had come back to her that she had lost a long time ago.  
  
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Report Ranma Saotome:  
  
Four hours. Four hours in my home universe and I have no idea what to do. The repair of the other ships was going according to schedule and in two hours the repair of the shields and propulsion systems where finished.  
  
I had my head lowered into my hands.  
  
"What should I do? What CAN I do?"  
  
"Well," said a voice in front of my desk," At the moment nothing more than think."  
  
Startled I looked up. In one of the seats I front of the desk sat a male terran. I stared at him. He looked exactly like Falo Gause, a soccer star who died 1303 NGC some month after his last game. He had been a mutant and some kind of Martin Luther King for the mutants. Some soccer fans where setting him onto one level with the 'light figure' Franz Beckenbauer of the 20. century.  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
Gause smiled a bit.  
  
"No, I'm not really Falo Gause. I only took on his shape, so that I can talk to you. I'm so what of a observer. But even I have my limit. I will tell you something about your old home universe."  
  
He smiled a bit more.  
  
"You know what a super-intelligence is?"  
  
I glared at him.  
  
"Yes, a super-intelligence is a higher being. The next step on the evolutionary ladder. In most cases a collective of multiple millions of consciousnesses of a species that left behind their mortal existence."  
  
He smiled a bit more.  
  
"That is correct. I tell you a bit. In this galaxy there are three beings not unlike a super-intelligence, but something completely different. All three are calling themselves 'goddesses'. Their names are Tsunami, Washuu and Tokemi. Tsunami is the goddess of the Jurians. Before their home world was integrated into the Solar Empire, they where one of the major powers of the galaxy. Washuu doesn't really remember much of her 'goddess hood' since she renounced it to live as mortal as possible. And Tokemi, well, she is a being that stands behind the Solar Empire. Be careful, when you work on a plan. Tokemi is more powerful than her sisters. At least at the moment."  
  
With that the fake soccer star faded away, the smile was the last to fade.  
  
----------------------------------.  
  
Interlude 3:  
  
A man stood on the bridge of the 'Throne' the mightiest ship of the Resistance. Once it was the flagship of the jurian home fleet, once it was one of the mightiest ships in the galaxy. Like the man was once the Emperor of Jurai and now the head of the Resistance. The 'Throne' was backed up by nearly thousand ships, some of them where old jurian vessels, other where vessels of the Oni and again others where the last remaining ships of the Galaxy Police or the Holy Republic of Zephyrus. All these ships had only one directive.  
  
Search and find the ships that where coming from the other universe. That was one of the best chances for the Resistance to go against the Solar Empire.  
  
His eyes where falling onto the shape that was standing near the tree in the middle of the bridge. He shook his head. This shape was only a part of a being that helped Tsunami the ships of the Resistance when navigating in Omega Centauri, the biggest star cluster of the milky way. Four Million stars, many of them old red giants, in a 120 light-year diameter sphere. And it was the only place of the whole galaxy where the Empire had no chance to get a hold on.  
  
Omega Centauri was a hazardous place for someone who didn't know it. And only because the stars where creating higher dimensional shockwaves that caused most technology to run amok. Only ships of the Resistance where able to enter and leave Omega Centauri, because Tsunami had created gems that where creating a calm zone around the ship. The only FTL-drive that could be used was a system that caused the ship to leave normal space and jump through hyperspace to the destination.  
  
He looked out into the blackness of space. Tenchi Masaki, former Emperor of Jurai and leader of the Resistance, hoped that he would find the six ships and give them a save haven.  
  
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Report Ranma Saotome:  
  
I sat in my chair on the bridge and looked at the hologram in front of me. Around me Control was bursting with activity. In several points holographic projections where indicating that the whole ship was on Condition Red. Several minutes ago, a fleet of ships had been materializing some million kilometers distant.  
  
"How many?"  
  
"Two thousand. Heavy battleships. Energy profiles are matching with the ships we encountered back home."  
  
Damn, they had found us. Only the 'Yamato' and 'Graf Spee' where in the condition to fight. The heavy cruisers still needed to be repaired.  
  
"We won't fight. Nadja, set a course to the galactic center. Mai-Lin, set up secured uplinks to the 'Yamato' and the 'Graf Spee' and synchronize our movement."  
  
I could hear the light humming of the field drives that where accelerating the 'Marco Polo' with 990 kps² towards the speed of light. Three minutes would be needed to enter hyperspace.  
  
"One of the ships is trying to communicate."  
  
I nodded and a hologram with Hibiki's face appeared in front of me.  
  
"To the commanders of the LFT vessels, surrender your ships. I swear on my honor as Knight of the Empire that you will be treated fair."  
  
I frowned. At this time we where only receiving the transmission. One movement to a small control table in my command chair opened a transmission channel back to Hibiki.  
  
"You mean that we will be 'cleansed', become happy zombies and do everything Usagi said? I don't think so, Hibiki. By the way, you are sounding like Kuno."  
  
Hibiki lost every bit of color in his face. Every corpse looked healthier than he at the moment. He stared at me. It is so what satisfying to see an old 'friend' with an expression of utter shock and panic on his face. It makes me feel really good. At least now.  
  
"H-h-how..."  
  
I also could see him shaking. Now I'm a bit worried. What am I? The anti-christ? Satan himself?  
  
"Well, let's just say that the Nanban-Mirror had at least one good point. I hope we will meet again, my old 'friend'. And when we do, I will blast you and your ship out of the universe."  
  
I cut the connection and the 'Marco Polo' jumped into hyperspace.  
  
----------------------------------.  
  
The observer sat somewhere in a plain white void and looked worried into something that looked remarkly like the Time Gate. Well, it was the Time Gate, because Sailor Pluto came behind and frowned at the observer. He still wore the body of Falo Gause.  
  
"What do you want," she asked with a voice that was able to freeze Helium.  
  
The observer smiled at her.  
  
"The same I do every time, observing. That is my job."  
  
He waved with his hand and the picture in the gate disappeared. It had shown the 'Marco Polo' fleeing from Hibiki's ships.  
  
Sailor Pluto snarled and pointed the Time Staff towards him.  
  
"Leave and never come back."  
  
The fake Gause simply smiled.  
  
"You know that I'm neutral. I won't interfere with the pity little plans of the little rabbit, that thinks it is faster and better."  
  
With that he disappeared without a trace. Pluto swore. She hated the observer with her soul. He was one thing she couldn't control, couldn't say what he would do. At the same time she was envious for his power. If she had his powers she would be able to help her queen better and spread the peace to the whole universe and into other universes.  
  
She needed some time to get herself together and search for the LFT vessels. It would be childs play to find them and say what the commander would do next. So they would run directly into a trap that had to be build to capture the ships.  
  
----------------------------------.  
  
In a higher plane of existence, Tokemi frowned. The LFT wasn't reacting like she had planed. The ships and the commander of them would cause a major drawback for her plans to be set free from her prison and her rise to absolute power with the help of the Solar Empire.  
  
Unseen to her the observer smiled. Than he disappeared.  
  
----------------------------------.  
  
The observer materialized in a small apartment that was located in the center of a big city. The city itself was located in the center of a platform of 8000 kilometer diameter and floating in the vastness of space surrounded by a field that hid it from the eyes of Sailor Pluto and other higher beings.  
  
He chuckled. He liked the humans and their sayings.  
  
"No plan survives initial contact with the enemy," he said.  
  
A shape materialized beside him. It was looking exactly like him.  
  
"You had fun," the other fake Gause asked.  
  
"Yes," the observer answered," To tease Pluto is the best fun I can have."  
  
The other fake smiled.  
  
"Like Rhodan back home. I only hope that Saotome is helping here."  
  
"Me too, old friend. Me too."  
  
----------------------------------.  
  
Appendix:  
  
NGC: New Galactic Century, Timetable introduced in 3588 AD  
  
LFT: League of Free Terrans, interstellar union of nearly 2482 fully member systems in a USA-like nation with 1866 associated systems, tendency increasing. Terra/Earth is the main planet, with Terrania as capital. Because of recent assaults by varoius extra-galactical invaders the number of military ships was increased to 350.000 ships. One of the mayor players of the galaxy and the one with the most political influence.  
  
Hunhay'Tusan: arkonian for 'Godly Empire', interstellar Empire with more than 12000 directly controlled and over 22.000 economical dependent systems. With more than 650.000 ships of various classifications the military and economical most powerful mayor player of the galaxy. They had the technological edge for a few years, before the LFT surprassed them again.  
  
Forum Ranglund: Loose federation of more than 30.000 different world in the east and northside of the galaxy. The Forum was founded as reaction to the arkonian expansion course after 1230 NGC. The only problem is that the species in the Forum are constantly fighting over bagatelles. That is preventing them to become more powerful than the Hunhay'Tussan.  
  
Ship classes: terran and arkonian ships are generally of a spherical base form, with different diameters. The classification of ships in the LFT is based on the diameter.  
  
DiameterClassShip-type (Example)  
60mCorvetteCorvette  
100mLight CruiserVesta  
200mHeavy CruiserProtos  
500mBattle CruiserOdin  
800mBattleshipNova  
1500m  
1800mDreadnaughtDiscoverer  
2500mSuper-Galaxy  
DreadnaughtNeo-Galaxy  
  
Space Jet: terran spaceship design, the most popular design for smaller space ships under the size of a Corvette and a discus design. The size of a Space Jet can range from 8 meter to 60 meter diameter. Some Statistics are showing that the Space Jet is THE number one space ship in the galaxy with more than 25 million sold units for military, private and economical use.  
  
Kps²: Kilometer per second squared, measure for acceleration  
  
Hyper-dimensional spectrum: Is the hyper-dimensional equivalent of the electro-magnetic spectrum with the same subdivisions. The used measure is Kalup. Some physicians claim that 'real' hyper-physic is starting in the UHF-area of the hyper-dimensional spectrum.  
  
----------------------------------.  
  
Next time:  
  
Hunt for 'Marco Polo' 


	2. Chapter 2

New Shores  
  
AWarringer  
  
Disclaimer: Nothing in here belongs to me, except for the story. PERRY RHODAN belongs to the Pabel-Moewing-Verlagsunion. Ranma 1/2 belongs to Rumiko Takahashi. Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi. Tenchi Myou belongs to A. I. C. and to Pioneer. Infinity's Shore belongs to James Barnhill. I've used it with his permission.  
  
Chapter two  
  
Hunt for 'Marco Polo'  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Hiroshi Yamasaki sat in front of his console in the computer control center of the 'Marco Polo'. He leaned back into his chair, feet on the console and reading in a manga. Sometimes he chuckled a bit and turned the page. Well, it was not a real manga in the meaning of the old 20. century term. It was more a little computer with over 200 pages, like an actual book, and could be loaded with the story, so that you could read it like a normal book.  
  
Hiroshi was an Azura. They where descendants of Japanese emigrant, who colonized the planet in the late 21 century. They took their culture with them, as well as their language. Of course they spoke the common language of the LFT, the Interkosmo, too.  
  
Azura was a planet with a largely earthlike ecosphere and a bit bigger than earth, with a higher gravity of 1.332 Gravo. The humans on Azura had adapted to the planet and where of a bit stocky build and had slightly longer canines. And Hiroshi could have been the visual twin of Ryoga Hibiki.  
  
One fifth of the Azura had parapsychical abilities, but most of them where only very minor in power. Hiroshi for example was an Energetic, an ability that was a variety of telekinesis. He was able to manipulate conventional and higher dimensional energy fields. And Hiroshi had specialized to use this ability on computer systems. With that he was the perfect hacker.  
  
He felt a weight on his legs and lowered his manga.  
  
"'Golden Boy' again, heh?" the weight on his legs said.  
  
Hiroshi shrugged and continued to read his manga.  
  
"We have Condition Red, and you are reading like you are off duty."  
  
"As if something would happen, Yoshi. We're in hyperspace and I don't think that anyone is able to do us harm here. And like you see, everything is in best condition."  
  
The weight moved higher and over his abdomen to press itself under the manga and looked him into the eyes.  
  
"You should know better, Hiroshi."  
  
The 'weight' was an Oni, an intelligent species that had developed on Azura, but not from the native fauna, but from rats that came to the planet on board the colony ships. Some kind of radiation caused the rats to mutate and become more intelligent with every generation. In the 2300's the first Oni's came into the light, so to speak, and they where thought to be ghosts, hence the name Oni. Nowadays the Oni where part of the culture of Azura and very good engineers. Yoshi was the partner of Hiroshi and an expert for the hardware, while Hiroshi was the expert for software.  
  
He looked at the twenty centimeter long brown rat.  
  
"So?"  
  
Yoshi sighed.  
  
"You're hopeless."  
  
Two small black eyes where looking into two brown human eyes.  
  
"Let me tell you, what we got here. First, we are in another universe. Second, we are on Condition Red. And third, we are in a combat situation and should look for the computers. And you are sitting here looking into the newest issue of 'Golden Boy'."  
  
Yoshi rose onto his hind legs and crossed his front legs, which ended in small hands.  
  
"Why is it always me, who had to remind you that we are on a battleship?"  
  
Hiroshi sighed, closed his manga. He grabbed his companion and sat him onto his console.  
  
"You are annoying, you know?"  
  
"Yes, and I'm good with that. You are the head of the computer center, you have to be a good example for the others."  
  
Hiroshi rolled his eyes.  
  
"Sheesh, you are not my mother. Or my dad for that matter."  
  
Yoshi glared at him.  
  
"Thanks the Kami, that none of my kids is a lazy bum like you."  
  
Hiroshi looked at him.  
  
"And you know if any of them is lazy? How many do you have, huh? 100? 150?"  
  
"137, so?"  
  
Hiroshi rolled his eyes again and his fingers where flying over the keyboards and through the holograms.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
The 'Marco Polo' sped through hyperspace, the two battle cruisers in tow. The three heavy cruisers were in the special bays, where they where being repaired. The three ships where using the highest economical speed, somewhere near 85 million times the speed of light. Every speed over this put more strain to the Metagrav systems that where holding the ships in hyperspace.  
  
"Jump back into normal space in 1 minute."  
  
The destination of the three ships was the system 'Kalup's Gate'. It had three gas giants and multiple moons orbiting the giant. In the war between the LFT and the arkonian Hunhay'Tussan, the third planet was the secret base of the solar home fleet, wirch consisted of more than 25.000 ships. "Jump back into normal space in 30 seconds."  
  
Everyone in Command was nervous. Even the commander of the ship, Ranma Saotome. Except for the voice of the computer everything was quiet.  
  
"Jump back into normal space in ten seconds."  
  
Nobody knew if there where ships in the system, or even colonies. Everything could be the exact opposite of the known system.  
  
"Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, Executing."  
  
The three ships left hyperspace and the sensory systems where sweeping the whole system with active and passive scans.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
"What the heck?"  
  
Hiroshi blinked and looked back onto the status hologram he had looked at, as the ship fell back into normal space.  
  
"What is it," asked Yoshi.  
  
Hiroshi blinked again and scratched his chin.  
  
"I mean that there was something that shouldn't have been there."  
  
Now it was Yoshi's turn to blink.  
  
"What?"  
  
Hiroshi shook his head.  
  
"Nothing."  
  
He pressed his eyes shut and went back to work.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Unknown to most of the people in the Empire and the Resistance, the Solar Empire had a vast network of communication and surveillance satellites in the galaxy. Every satellite had the shape of a cube with a side length of 20 meters and was packed with communication and surveillance systems.  
  
There where several millions of nearly identical satellites, each overlooking cube of space with a volume of 125 cubic-light-years. Sometimes these cubes where overlapping.  
  
The cubes themselves where handling a data stream of nearly 100.000 Penta- Bit per Second. They where organized like the internet on earth before the impact of the asteroid Loki that brought the 'Great Ice' and with that Crystal Tokyo and the Solar Empire.  
  
Now seven of these satellites where receiving a short signal. It was placed on a frequency used for special cases by the Solar Fleet. For example, when there where hunts for space ships which were contaminated by a special computer virus. The ships could try to run and hide, but every time they entered normal space the virus would send a short transmission. With this transmission and the satellites the ships of the Solar Fleet where able to hunt a ship and eventually destroy or capture it. At least as long as it didn't left the galaxy.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Hiroshi blinked again as he looked at the hologram in front of him and frowned. There it was again. A trace of something that moved through the syntronic systems of the ship.  
  
"Okay, my friend. I'll get you."  
  
Yoshi blinked at him.  
  
"What?"  
  
"There is something in the system that doesn't belong here."  
  
Yoshi frowned like Hiroshi.  
  
"A virus or something like that."  
  
Hiroshi nodded and began to program a search for the trace he found.  
  
"Looks like if. But how did it penetrate the Firewall? And when?"  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
An alarm went through the ship.  
  
"Contact! Looks like five battle ships of the Solar Empire."  
  
Ranma cursed. He had hoped that they had more than twenty minutes.  
  
"How did they find us that fast?"  
  
The reaction of his command staff was fast and precise. The big gravimetric field drives accelerated the giant ship with ease towards 55 percent the speed of light. But still, the ship needed time.  
  
Five enemy battleships did a short trip to hyperspace to bypass 15 million kilometer and left hyperspace directly on course of the 'Marco Polo'. At the same time the ships opened fire and the energies of their weapons slammed into the Paradim-shields of the 'Marco Polo'. The 'Yamato' and the 'Graf Spee' were using the better shielding of the larger ship as a cover. The three ships blasted though the line of enemy ships and the two battle cruisers changed their position to be in front of the 'Marco Polo'.  
  
Ten seconds later the three ships entered hyperspace.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Hiroshi stared in concentration at his holographic screens and tried to trace the virus. He worked his way through the logs-files and began to place tracer bots.  
  
"Okay, my friend."  
  
Exactly at that time the 'Marco Polo' left hyperspace, a short data-burst raced through the network. The tracer bots Hiroshi had placed, went to work and traced the virus. A small firewall tried to hold back the virus, but it broke through it like a high speed projectile trough a sheet of paper. But Hiroshi knew that the virus would do this. The firewall was only a distraction for the virus to place a virus into the virus. The virus attacked the hyperspace communication phalanx and the navigation software and transmitted a short message with the coordinates of the 'Marco Polo' followed by a short status file of the ship.  
  
Hiroshi smiled. Now he was able to track down the virus and build a virtual playground for it.  
  
"Yoshi, cut the communication between node 12-Alpha-2-Gamma and the surrounding nodes except for node 13-Beta-1-Omega."  
  
Yoshi himself began to use a smaller terminal to cut the lines of a minor system node with more than a thousand of surrounding nodes. The main computer system of the 'Marco Polo' was one of the most sophisticated systems for space ships. A syntonic-positronic hybrid computer with network architecture. 750.000 Syntronic and 1.250.000 positronic major nodes where spread around the ship. While the Syntronic nodes were faster, they could be destroyed by a special computer virus called KorraVir, that was used in electronic warfare. Positronic systems hadn't this problem and so the hybrid computers had been successful in the last 40 years.  
  
"Now I got you. Yoshi cut every line between 13-Beta-1-Omega and the surrounding nodes."  
  
With that the trap snapped close. Since every line was cut on a physical level, the virus wasn't able to leave the two nodes. When it moved to 13- Beta-1-Omega it would find the virtual playground and never leave.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
The 'Marco Polo' entered hyperspace a second time in one hour to flee from the Solar Fleet. While it had been five ships the first time, it had been 200 the last time. Ranma had a slight air of nervousness around him.  
  
"Commander?"  
  
Ranma jumped out of his seat at the sound of the voice and landed in a ready stance. Hiroshi locked a bit lost.  
  
"Are you all right, Commander?"  
  
Ranma breathed in deep. At first he had thought that Hibiki had somehow entered the ship, but than he remembered Hiroshi. He sat back into his seat and began to massage his neck.  
  
"I'm a bit nervous, that's all ."  
  
Hiroshi nodded and gave Ranma a PAD.  
  
"I found a virus in our system. Every time, we reentered normal space, it sends a short information impulse to an unknown receiver. The impulse contains out position and course."  
  
Ranma's eyes swept over the foil and the information on it caused him to frown.  
  
"Any idea how it came into our systems?"  
  
"No. But I suspect that it could be on the same way as the KorraVir infects Syntronic systems. But this virus only infects positronic systems."  
  
Ranma sighed and recalled everything he knew about the KorraVir.  
  
The Korrango-Virus has been discovered in the galaxy DaGlausch in 1292 NGC. It was able to infect every syntronic system and destroy it. Only positronic computers were immune to the virus. It could be transferred through every thing that you could modulate - for example a communication signal, the beam of a weapon, the shield frequency or even the active scanning beam. The only thing that was needed to get infected was a scanner or receiver that was able to separate the modulated virus from the signal. Nowadays the KorraVir was a standard way of information warfare, causing all main systems to be refitted back to positronics, the building of hybrid computers or, for the giant system mainframes like 'Nathan' on Luna, to be shielded by a physical shield.  
  
"Can you delete the virus."  
  
"Piece of cake, but I don't know if the other ships got the virus too."  
  
Ranma got a gleam in his eyes as he smiled.  
  
"They want the 'Marco'? They can get it. If they find the real one that is."  
  
Ranma's reaction caused Hiroshi to blink.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
The hangar section of the 'Marco Polo' burst with activity. Five 'Vesta' class cruisers stood in their hangars and waited to be refitted with special modules.  
  
'Vesta' cruisers were one of the backbones of the LFT fleet. They were designed as Multifunctional spaceships, short MFS-ships. They could be outfitted with a multitude of moduls and take any role you needed.  
  
At the moment these five of 20 'Vesta' cruisers waited for special 'Virtual Imager'-modules. These modules were fitted with a high effective Virtual Imager, a device that could create the normal- and hyperdimensional emissions of any space ship. These Virtual Images couldn't be distinguish from real ships without special sensory systems.  
  
In reality it was a matter of only two minutes to dock the modules into the MF-bay, but first they had to be transported to the ships. Only one minute before the 'Marco Polo' fell back into normal space the hangar crews were finished and the five 'Vesta' cruiser prepared to leave their hangars. Force field projectors were ready to catapult them into space.  
  
Only one second after the reentry of normal space, the virtual matter hangar doors simply disappeared and the 'Vesta' cruisers were launched into space. Every cruiser set an individual course and accelerated to a speed that was necessary to enter hyperspace.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVE _SIX_ POSITIONS OF THAT FLEET??"  
  
Lieutenant Commander Niclas Haroldsen took a step back as he looked into the anger-red face of Lord Hibiki. He swallowed. He never imagined that he would be the cause of one of Lord Hibiki's temper fit's.  
  
"THERE CAN'T BE SIX ENEMY FLEETS!! I KNOW THAT THERE IS JUST ONE!!"  
  
Haroldsen swallowed again.  
  
"Milord, we have six confirmed sightings of the fleet, at six different position. One big reflex and five smaller ones. The reflexes are even completely identical."  
  
Haroldsen just wondered why he suddenly felt that he should sign a transfer back to Ceti Alpha 4. The sandstorms there should be beautiful this time of the year.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Hiroshi shook his head as he watched his currently female commander giggle like mad. Commander Saotome had some interesting ideas.  
  
"Let them hunt shadows," she had said.  
  
Hiroshi shook his head and left Command to get back to his console. He had a virus to analyze. Maybe he could use the virus to write other viruses?  
  
The 'Marco Polo's fleet would fall back into normal space near 'Boscyk's Star', around 6309 Light-years away from Sol. In the LFT-universe the second planet of 'Boscyk's star' was called Olymp and the most important trade world in the whole galaxy. Ranma wanted to see what the planet was here.  
  
The three ships, the heavy cruisers were still in the docking bays, fell back in to normal space, maybe 20 million Kilometers distant to Olymp.  
  
"We got seven contacts," it come from one of sensory technicians," five ships are confirmed as Imperial ships. The other two are unknown. They fire at each other."  
  
Ranma's giggles stopped. She looked at the main hologram. It showed a diagram of the system. The two unknown ships were in actual short distance ship-to-ship combat with the five imperial ships. Tradom had been the last time, She had seen short distance ship-to-ship combat, not only long distance combat with transform cannons. The two unknown ships seemed to be smaller than the imperial ships, with lesser weaponry and less powerful shielding, but with a higher acceleration. A data window showed that the smaller ships had an acceleration of nearly 1200 kps².  
  
They would speed up to maybe 20 percent light-speed, fire when in range and until they were out of range and than make a curve and come back.  
  
"I think we should help them. Fire when in range."  
  
Daniel Zarkov, the weapons operator, nodded and made some inputs into the weapons console. The targeting computer targeted the five imperial ships and deep in the bowels of the ship, each of the 36 transform cannons chambered ten transform bombs, dematerialized them and stored the dematerialized bombs for the use.  
  
While the 'Marco Polo' reduced the distance to the fighting ships, one of the smaller detonated violently in a shower of scrap metal and gas. The other ship now received more hits than before, as it was the only remaining target. Idly Ranma wondered why the ships didn't do anything to acknowledge the 'Marco'.  
  
As the three ships approached to 15 million kilometer distance to the imperial ships, 6 heavy and 30 twin transform cannons fired their deadly payload, 60 thermonuclear bombs with 4000 Giga-tons payload and 300 bombs with 3000 Giga-tons. Since the ships didn't seem to have the same systems as the ships that invaded the LFT-universe, the shielding of the ships wasn't powerful enough to withstand the detonation of the bombs. The covering long distance transform bombardment was exactly timed and the small ship was away from the detonating imperial ships.  
  
1.140.000 Giga-tons of thermonuclear death found their targets. Each ship was hit by twelve 4000 and 60 3000 Giga-ton bombs and the resulting detonations of the bombs was to much strain for the shield of the imperial ships. Even if only 10 percent of the detonation energy made it through the shielding, it was enough to melt the hull armor and make its way to the reactors. The resulting explosion was nothing compared to the detonation of the 360 bombs.  
  
In other words. BOOM!!!  
  
The smaller ship itself had gotten hit pretty hard in the last volley of the imperial ships. Its main engine section blew up and it now floated in space.  
  
"May-Lin, try to hail the left ship."  
  
The feline operations and communication officer nodded. After a few seconds she nodded.  
  
"We got a connection, voice only. The ship identifies itself as 'Sanyo- oh'."  
  
Ranma nodded and began to speak.  
  
"This is the 'Marco Polo', do you need any assistance?"  
  
There was a short silence, before Ranma got an answer by a gruff male voice.  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
The suspicion was clearly audible.  
  
"I'm Ranma Saotome, the captain of this vessel. We are not of the Solar Empire."  
  
"We kinda noticed, smartass. Are you of the Resistance?"  
  
Ranma raised an eyebrow and breathed in deep.  
  
"No, we are not. Can we help you."  
  
"Of course you can help! This system will be full of imperial ships in ten minutes! We have to get away from here!"  
  
Ranma nodded.  
  
"We will tow you in one of our hangars. Do you need any further help?"  
  
Ranma looked at May-Lin, who nodded. The voice seemed to loose patience.  
  
"Who the fuck are you? Some sort of retard?"  
  
Ranma closed her eyes.  
  
"I just want to know what kind of help we can give you, once you are in our hangar."  
  
"Every help we can get."  
  
The other side cut the connection.  
  
Ranma shook her head.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Only five minutes later the battered form of a small jurian cruiser rested on antigravity fields in the middle of one of the 'Marco's' hangar-decks. It was a ship of 250 meter length and 100 meter width, but it looked a bit lost in the hangar with its height of 50 meters. Some patches of the wooden hull was burning now that it was exposed to the oxygen in the atmosphere of the hangar.  
  
Several small robots took of from their hidden hangars and began to put out the fires. Other robots and hangar crews had to wait for the crew of the ship to open the hatches of the ship.  
  
One of the engineers in the hangar crew stared at the hull of the ship for a long time. Than he turned to a colleague.  
  
"Just why does anyone build the hull of a space ship of wood?"  
  
His colleague shrugged.  
  
"Absolutely no idea, Scotty. Maybe because it's ecological?"  
  
The Scottish engineer just stared at his friend.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Ranma, back in male form entered the hospital of the 'Marco' together with his daughter. Most of the rescued ships crew was injured. Well, not just most, every single member of the crew was injured to a certain degree. Open wounds, plasma and normal burns, broken bones, internal injuries, even one or two missing limbs. But the hospital of the 'Marco' was more than able to handle the fifty injured, since it had been designed to be able to take care of up to 200 injured, with the help of medical robots of course.  
  
They went up to a humanoid male in a white coat. His head was completely hairless and of a conical form. The man smiled at Ranma.  
  
"What can I do for you, Commander? Nothing medical I hope."  
  
Ranma smiled back.  
  
"No Dr. Martak, I wanted to look after the rescued and maybe talk to the captain of the vessel."  
  
Martak nodded. He was an Ara, a race that was leading on the medical sector in the galaxy. No one ever heard of an Ara that wasn't working in the medical sector.  
  
"Good. From what I gather we got the captain of the vessel in room number 121. She only got a concussion and some minor plasma burns around her hand, but nothing that can't he healed."  
  
Ranma blinked. The captain was female? Maybe he had spoken with one of the crew of the 'Sanyo-oh'. After a short walk they entered room 121. It was a room for two patients who needed observation. And two persons were present.  
  
One of them looked like a young female terran, but since there were some races that looked exactly like terrans in the galaxy, it was possible that she wasn't. She looked maybe 21 years old, had a overall Japanese face and black hair that bordered into a dark blue with some white and golden streaks. She laid in a medo-bed and her arm was covered with adhesive medical tape that supported her healing. She looked oddly familiar.  
  
The other person, well, you weren't exactly able to tell of what gender this person was, since it looked somewhat androgyn. But the face was something you would remember, since it looked unfinished, like the face of a statue that wasn't finished by the artist. Like the gender, the age was not identifiable. The person sat by the bed and watched the woman.  
  
The person turned to Ranma and Tijana.  
  
"Who are you?" the person asked.  
  
"I'm Ranma Saotome," Ranma answered. " I'm the commander of this vessel. This is my daughter Tijana."  
  
Tijana smiled at the two. The person nodded.  
  
"I'm Yasha."  
  
Then he smiled a bit forced.  
  
"I have to thank you for the rescue."  
  
Ranma nodded.  
  
"It's the duty of a martial artist to help those who are in distress," he said, " And that of a commander of the LFT."  
  
Yasha blinked and tilted his head.  
  
"What is the LFT?"  
  
Tijana answered before Ranma had the chance.  
  
"The League of Free Terrans. We are from another universe. The Solar Empire tried to invade our Terra a day ago. We defeated them and our little Task Force was able to follow the only ship that was able to flee."  
  
Yasha nodded at that and looked at the woman.  
  
"You were right Hiromi. They really tried it."  
  
The both Saotomes blinked.  
  
"She knew they would do something like that?"  
  
Yasha nodded.  
  
"Yes. She is Hiromi Hibiki, the daughter of Lord Ryoga Hibiki and Lady Io."  
  
Ranma breathed in hard and he moved into a standard Anything Goes Defense Position, not that anyone who wasn't trained would realize it. His eyes narrowed.  
  
"Ryoga Hibiki?"  
  
Yasha nodded again.  
  
"She fled from the Empire two hundred years ago when she found out some of the horrible truth about her father and her mother. Our resistance group found her and she was active ever since."  
  
Tijana stared at the other woman.  
  
"Wow, time treated her well. I want to know that secret."  
  
That got her an elbow into the side by her father. He looked at the strange humanoid.  
  
"What horrible truth?"  
  
"Does giving the order for more than enough genocides count? She doesn't believe that standard propaganda of the Empire that every non-humanoid race is 'evil', at least not anymore."  
  
He made a dramatic pause.  
  
"And than there is the fact that she's not entirely human anymore."  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Lieutenant Commander Haroldson swallowed nervously at he looked at the communication stream his ship just received. He reread it for the third time and closed his eyes. He had to give this communiqué to Lord Hibiki and he hadn't any doubt what would happen, he knew the temper fits of his Lord. He had become the commander and adjutant of Lord Hibiki after his predecessor had been on the receiving end of one.  
  
He breathed in. His Lord had received an order from their queen just a few hours ago about the six ships from that evil human empire they had to cleanse and now this. This wasn't good. If this was right they had a problem.  
  
He had seen the horrible pictures and video-feeds from the agents that had been in that other universe. Humans were nothing but slaves and cattle for the evil alien Overlords and the human traitors, like Perry Rhodan or Reginald Bull. They had to help those humans.  
  
He breathed in a last time before he entered his Lord's office and kneeled before the big oak desk.  
  
"My Lord, I have to give you bad news."  
  
The big arm chair swung around and Lord Hibiki glared at him.  
  
"What?"  
  
Harlodson gulped.  
  
"We have gotten one last message from Patrol Fleet 13221. They were on the trail of you."  
  
'Damn,' Haroldson thought,' I nearly said it.'  
  
".of the traitor Hiromi. The fleet cornered two ships of her group. One of them was the 'Sanyo-Oh'. They destroyed one of the ships, but then the fleet, we are hunting, interfered and destroyed the ships. We got one last communiqué before the contact to the surveillance cube of that area was interrupted."  
  
Lord Hibiki glared at the sweating and shivering Haroldson. He did not smile at the pathetic form of his adjutant.  
  
"Leave." he said with a dangerous low voice," Leave."  
  
Haroldson nearly stumbled over his own feet as he left the room in a hurry. He was glad that he made it out alive, as Lord Hibiki had this habit of killing the carrier of bad news.  
  
Inside his office Hibiki's knuckles turned white as he broke the wooden armrests of his arm chair. Slowly a sick green aura formed around him as he muttered one of his old trademark phrases from his past, before the Empire.  
  
"Ranma, this is all your fault."  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Ranma sat in his office, deep in thought. He never thought it would be like this. The few words with Yasha had just shattered the last thing of hope he had. Usagi had always been so positive and carefree. But he also remembered the xenophobic tendencies of the Sailor Senshi. He really had thought that the Empire would only cleanse other species, but genocide? He shook his head.  
  
"Good intentions pave the road to hell," he said and chuckled dryly.  
  
He looked at a small holographic picture. It showed him and some friend back from the University. Two of them were alien. One was a Blue, the other a Swoon. He sighed. If he let Usagi and the rest of the Senshi and their lapdog get a bridgehead at home, he would just sign a death sentence for them.  
  
He chuckled again. He didn't know when he began to consider the LFT- universe as his home and not this universe, but it didn't matter.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Slowly a fleet of twenty Jurian cruisers and battle cruisers made its way through hyperspace. One of them was the flagship of the fleet, 'Throne'. A few frigates of the Oni and the former Galaxy Police gave them back-up, followed by a lemurian carrier.  
  
Kiriaade, part of the being that had helped Tsunami to navigate in Omega Centauri, had found the trail of the six ships from the other universe. It was only a matter of time before they reached the ships.  
  
Tenchi Masaki, former Emperor of Jurai and leader of the Resistance sat in an armchair in the middle of the 'Thorne's' bridge.  
  
"Return into normal space in ten seconds," the voice of the female navigator said.  
  
Tenchi just nodded. Hopefully they would find the ship this time, before the Empire found them. He looked at the main view-screen. He only saw the red swirls of hyperspace.  
  
"Return to normal space."  
  
The view changed and showed deep space, littered with small lights.  
  
"Contact. We got three contacts. No imperial energy signatures."  
  
Kiriaade looked over the shoulder of the sensory tech and nodded.  
  
"That are energy signatures of the LFT," she said in her soft voice.  
  
Tenchi nodded.  
  
"Hail them."  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Appendix:  
  
Gravo: measure for gravitation, 1 Gravo is equal to a standard earth gravitation of 9.81 meter per second squared.  
  
Syntronic: A very high developed computer. It creates a small 'subspace- pocket' and uses as a base for the operations. It is said to be faster than light in its operations.  
  
Gravimetric Field Drive or Hypercon: A fuel less propulsion system that uses special emitters to create hyperdimensional waves. These waves are creating interference in flight direction that resembles a gravitation field and draws the emitting ship, and only the emitting ship, towards this gravitational field. At the same time the field moves at the distance. It's a bit like the carrot on a stick and the mule.  
  
Virtual Matter: Simply put materialized energy. It can take any shape you like and is used in every imaginable way. It is very safe to use, so safe that it is used for the interior design of apartments.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Next Time:  
  
First Contact 


	3. Chapter 3

New Shores  
  
AWarringer  
  
Disclaimer:   
  
Nothing in here belongs to me, except for the story.  
  
PERRY RHODAN belongs to the Pabel-Moewing-Verlagsunion.  
  
Ranma 1/2 belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.  
  
Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi.  
  
Tenchi Myou belongs to A. I. C. and to Pioneer.  
  
Infinity's Shore belongs to James Barnhill. I've used it with his permission.  
  
Chapter three  
  
First Contact  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Present  
  
A fleet consisting of twenty Juraian cruisers and battle ships, a few Oni frigates, a Lemurian carrier and ships of the former Galaxy Police made their way slowly through hyperspace. One of the ships was the flagship of the resistance movement, the Juraian treeship "Throne".   
  
Kiriaade, part of the being that had helped Tsunami to navigate in Omega Centauri, had found the trail of the six ships from the other universe. It was only a matter of time before they found them.  
  
Tenchi Masaki, former Emperor of Jurai and leader of the Resistance sat in a comfortable chair in the middle of the 'Throne's' bridge.  
  
"Return into normal space in ten seconds," the voice of the female navigator said.  
  
Tenchi just nodded. Hopefully they would find the ship this time, before the Empire found them. He looked at the main view-screen. He only saw the red swirls of hyperspace.  
  
"Return to normal space," the navigator said.  
  
The view changed and showed deep space, littered with the small lights of distant suns.  
  
"Contact. We got three contacts. No imperial energy signatures."  
  
Kiriaade looked over the shoulder of the sensor tech and nodded.  
  
"That are energy signatures of LFT ships," she said in her soft voice.  
  
Tenchi nodded.  
  
"Hail them."  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
"Contact, we got thirty-six unknown vessels," said the steady voice of Nathan Hargrove, the chief sensor technician," They are not imperial ships."  
  
Ranma nodded and Nathan continued.  
  
"The energy signature of these ships doesn't look like anything, I have seen before. They haven't activated shields or weapons."  
  
"We are hailed," interrupted Mei-Lin'Hey," I put it through."  
  
A holographic screen appeared in the center of Command. It showed a man in his late twenties to early thirties. He had a small beard and radiated a calm that Ranma only had seen in the immortals at home.  
  
"Unknown vessels, this is Tenchi Masaki of the Resistance-vessel 'Throne'. Welcome in our universe, even if you may had some troubles. We mean you no harm."  
  
Ranma looked at Nathan from the corner of his eyes. Nathan shook his head. Those ships wouldn't be more of a threat than the imperial ships. Ranma nodded at the man on the hologram.  
  
"My name is Ranma Saotome," he answered." I'm the commander of the 'Marco Polo'. And yes, we had some trouble."  
  
"I can only hope that more ships are coming to help us fight the Empire."  
  
Ranma frowned a bit.  
  
"I'm sorry, but we are the only ships that can help you."  
  
'When you really are of this Resistance,' he added in his mind.  
  
Masaki raised an eyebrow.  
  
"I hope that one of the immortal is aboard your ship. Perry Rhodan or Reginald Bull maybe?"  
  
Ranma shook his head negative as his eyes narrowed at the face and frowned.  
  
"How do you know about the immortals and the LFT?"  
  
Another face appeared on the 2D holo-screen. Ranma remembered the woman from one of the data files of Rhodan's adventure with VESTA-class cruiser in Andromeda. The face was of a regular shape and definitely female. Her immaculate features were dominated by an aristocratic straight nose and full, pale lips. Her skin was pale as well, a soft light brown with some freckles around her nose. That was contrasted by her flaming red hair and the black eyes that looked like little black holes. Ranma knew that she was the bodily incarnation of a collective being that consisted of more than one million consciences.  
  
"Kiriaade," he stated.  
  
"It is nice to be remembered," Kiriaade said smiling.  
  
Ranma shrugged.  
  
"I only read the files about what happened in Andromeda," he said, causing Kiriaade to nod.  
  
"How is the Solar Resident? And how about the conflict with the 'Inquisition of Reason'?"  
  
"The Resident is fine. And we won the war. But we still help Tradom cope with the reconstruction."  
  
Masaki looked at her and she moved away from the screen.  
  
"Anyway," he said," Kiriaade never told anything about a ship of this size. The biggest she knows of are the 1.8 kilometer diameter Discoverer-class super-dreadnaughts."  
  
"I think we can talk about this later," Ranma said," We should move before the Empire finds us."  
  
"Agreed."  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Past  
  
2867 AD, Jurai  
  
Ryoko materialized in front of her husband and co-wife, while they were having fun. It appeared that the two had started without her. She was caught up in some trouble that popped up in the intelligence department earlier. Frowning, she coughed to try and get the attention of the two on the bed.  
  
Ajeka and Tenchi looked up and at the former Space Pirate. They were both grinning.  
  
"Why don't you join in?"  
  
Ryoko didn't move.  
  
"Tenchi, I'm sorry to cut in, but we just lost contact to the listening post in the Sol-System."  
  
Tenchi blinked.  
  
"Huh?" was the very competent and knowing answer of the Emperor of Jurai as he blinked.  
  
"Don't worry that much, Ryoko. Come and join in."  
  
Over the last centuries the two former rivals have come to love each other as much as Tenchi and so it was normal to share the 'fun'. They still fought, but that was just to blow some steam.  
  
"I would, but there is a problem with the destroyed listening post."  
  
Tenchi blinked. He just knew that the listening post was there to monitor eventual survivors of the asteroid 'Loki' that had hit earth in 2017. Up to date there was no luck, as the planet was still surrounded by dark clouds.  
  
"The listening post was build by my mother. And you know how tough her creations are."  
  
Tenchi looked concerned. I really was a feat to destroy one of Washuu's creations.  
  
"Who did it?"  
  
Ryoko shook her head.  
  
"We have no idea. There were no ships near the post."  
  
"Were was it stationed?"  
  
"On the planetoid Ceres in the asteroid belt."  
  
The three never knew that this was the beginning of the end for the free galaxy.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Present  
  
Ranma's fleet followed Masaki's fleet through hyperspace at a relative slow pace of 20 million times he speed of light. The hyperspace sensor array measured high quantities of energy consumed by the ships, so the Intel and Tech department of the crew assumed that this was the highest speed those ships were able to reach, but compared to the maximum speed of 90 million times the speed of light for the LFT-vessels, the juraian ships very awfully slow.  
  
After the ships had entered hyperspace, the computer department had deleted the virus that had contaminated the computers of the ships and transmitted the position to the Empire. The last orientation stop in normal space had been used to inform the 'Energy Shadows' of the fleet to delete their viruses and do recon flights before meeting the 'Marco' again.  
  
At the moment they were on the last part of the way to their target, Omega Centauri. Ranma's eyes were sweeping over the files that contained everything the LFT knew about the star cluster. It wasn't that much.  
  
Omega Centauri was the biggest star cluster in the halo of the milky way. It had a diameter of 120 light years and consisted of 4 million stars. The space of Omega Centauri was a special case for navigation and 'Faster than Light'-flight. Hyperspace waves and constant hyperspace storms made it impossible to use any FTL-drive save for one option.  
  
The Transition Drive. It created a hyperenergy field around the ship to dematerialize it and rematerialize at the target coordinates. It was the perfect FTL-drive, hadn't there been severe problems. The maximum range of the drive was around 5000 light years and it used very much energy. It also needed high computer power to calculate the correct calibration of the hyperenergy field for one specific jump.  
  
The constant hyperspace waves and storms also created interferences that disturbed the sensor systems, so they only had a maximum range of 100.000 kilometer instead of a few light hours, and the shielding, creating a constant stress of up to 50 percent to them. Additionaly the transition drive could only be used to jump from one 'calm' zone to another and never jump a larger distance them one or two light years. The 'calm' zones were pockets of space, where the constant storms created relatively calm spots where it was possible to jump in and out of hyperspace without too much strain on the engines  
  
Back home there were three 'Empires' in the Cluster, none of them ever made contact outside the cluster.  
  
Omega Centauri was mostly uncharted space in the home-universe, as no ships in terran history ever entered this area of space. The only pieces of data came from an expedition by Atlan, the immortal Arkonian about a century earlier.  
  
Ranma closed his eyes and thought about the information. He wondered how the situation in Omega Centauri would look in this universe.  
  
"Reentering normal space."  
  
The view on the ever present holo-cubes changed and showed the star cluster. He really looked impressive from this short distance. It looked like a wall made of stars and rainbow colored nebulas.  
  
Hargrove looked up.  
  
"Ranma, compared to the data from home, the emissions from the storms are more intense here. They also reach down into the frequencies, where the hyper drives of the Imperial ships are working. It looks like someone manipulated the cluster."  
  
Meanwhile Mai-Lin's fingers were racing over her keyboard and the holo's in front of her.  
  
"We're receiving navigation data and a plotted course with stable 'calm' zones."  
  
Ranma nodded and looked to the navigator.  
  
"Plot a course and start the calculations for a transition."  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Past  
  
2981 AD, Throne  
  
Tenchi frowned as he looked at the assembled fleet. Hopefully they would be sufficient to put an end to that 'Solar Empire'. He hated the fact that someone had appointed herself as Queen of some Utopia. And now she tried to conquer the galaxy from the planet he was born on.  
  
He gazed at Washuu for a moment. She had gone back to the Academy after he had become Emperor of Jurai. And she followed his call and was now researching the technology of this 'Solar Empire'. But they had never been able to get their hands on working technology. All they knew was the fact that the hulls of their ships were made of an alloy that was more sophisticated than any other alloy Washuu knew of.  
  
His gaze went back to the tactical display with a graphical representation of the Allied fleet of the galaxy. Everyone knew about the threat the Solar Empire represented. Everyone had lost colonies to them. He had ordered the entire Juraian fleet, around 20.000 ships, to take part in this battle. The Oni had given half of their assault fleet, 35.000 ships, to the Allied Fleet, and Galaxy Police two thirds of their fleet, 75.000 ships. Other races also came and their fleets added 35.000 ships to the Allied Fleet. 165.000 ships were waiting for his orders.  
  
He massaged his neck. He just hoped that this would be enough. Ryoko had gotten some Intel that the 'Solar Empire' would attack this system next. Bolares was a yellow dwarf with 1.1 sun-masses, with four planets. The second Planet Biso was colonized by Juraian settlers, but they forgot the origin of their ancestors.  
  
If the fleet lost this battle another planet would change hands. Washuu never found out why the inhabitants of occupied planets supported their invaders so fast and so intensive.  
  
"Contact," one of the sensor technicians said.  
  
The tactical display changed. The fleet was zoomed out and a second cluster of contacts appeared on it. Several data appeared beside the cluster and the ships of the allied fleet went into a three-dimensional defensive formation, looking like a bowl, the opening pointing at the 'Solar Fleet'. They on the other hand was already in a lose formation of 85.000 ships.  
  
The enemy fleet had only about half the ships of his fleet. Math alone had him clearly favoured, but the Solar Empire still had technology, the Allies didn't know about. They never knew what the 'Solar Fleet' would do or use next.  
  
Clusters of several thousand ships disappeared for a short amount of time to reappear between the Allied fleet. Washuu was only recently able to uncover the secret of the enemies FTL-drive. They didn't use the Subspace-diving technology like the other races in this part of the galaxy. Instead they entered hyperspace. As Subspace was a space "below" the normal layer of reality, where particles like tachyons existed, the "Hyperspace" was completely disconnected from normal space. It used more energy than subspace-drives, but was faster at the same time. But now they were able to predict where and when an Empire ship left hyperspace. The only problem was that the sensors weren't very sophisticated and had an error of up to 50 percent. Not to mention that the sensors were too expensive build and so big that only a few ship had them.  
  
Even with the new sensors, the battle was still hard. The defensive shields of the Empire ships were more than a match for the weapons of the Allied ships, only Juraian ships had a chance to get through them. Adding to that was the fact that the imperial ships were employing a 'Hit and Run' tactic. They would enter hyperspace for a short time, reenter normal space near a part of the Allied fleet to fire their weapons at them. After their weapon discharge they entered hyperspace again to change direction and repeat the maneuver.  
  
There wasn't much the Allied fleet could do to fight the Empire vessels while they were doing these maneuvers. The result on the Allied side was chaotic. When the Imperial ship sped through the Allied lines, friendly fire was a constant. Several hundred ships weren't destroyed by Imperial ships but by their own allies. After just one hour of battle, the Allied fleet had lost nearly half of their ships, while the Imperial fleet just lost maybe 5000.  
  
Another hour into the battle, the Allied fleet could just turn tail and run. 110.000 lost ships on side of the Allies to 9500 destroyed imperial ships.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Present  
  
Ranma massaged his neck as the pain of rematerialization faded. A look around showed that everyone in Command did the same. He looked at the main hologram, which displayed the view outside the ship. The MAXIM sensor phalanx tried to analyze the vessels, which surrounded his ships in a two light-seconds diameter. The 35.000 ships seemed to be some kind of sentry fleet that guarded this 'calm' space as it was one of only five places where a fleet could jump into Omega Centauri, without getting lost in the hyperspace storms.  
  
A few other holograms showed diagrams and graphics of several ships. Ranma noticed that half of those ships were spherical ships with a ring around the equator, the biggest of them with a diameter of 1.8 kilometer. Detailed data about the spherical ships followed. Those ships had been build by descendants of the old Lemurians, the first mankind.  
  
Around 52.000 years ago the Lemurians had developed on one of earth's two sunken continents, Lemur. They never left Lemur, but earth and build a large interstellar democratic state. 50.000 years ago, they tried to build a time machine, which got the attention of a species, who felt threatened and went to war. Lemur was destroyed and the continent sunk by an orbital bombardment after a period of 100 years of interstellar war, in which the Lemurian Empire was destroyed. Most off the lemurian colonies were evacuated to Andromeda, using giant transmat-devices powered by suns. The forgotten people forgot about their history and developed again on their own. With this history it wasn't surprising that a good part of the races in the galaxy were extremely humanoid and able to crossbreed with humans from earth.  
  
The Lemurian colonies in Omega Centauri still knew about their past, but they had been too afraid to leave their secured star cluster and never knew what happened outside.  
  
Ranma looked to one of the displays of a lemurian battleship. He blinked at one of the weapon systems and looked for it in the database. The result made him nervous. The Conversion-cannon, the main weapon system of the lemurian ships, was comparable to the Transform cannon. A bit more primitive, but the result was the same. He doubted that the 'Marco Polo' would survive the bombardment of the lemurian ships more than two minutes. Not with the reduced power of their shields.  
  
Another great part of the assembled fleet consisted of long pointy cylindrical ships. These were ships of the Mograk, a reptilian race that resembled big frogs. They were a race native to Omega Centauri and didn't really like Lemurians or their descendants. But Ranma figured that the 'Greater Good' made them suppress their 'dislike'. If possible, Ranma sweated some more at the gaze to the diagram of a Mograk-ship and it's main weapon. It just had to be an Intervall-cannon.  
  
"Great," he swore," Hopefully not from the frying pan into the fire."  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Past  
  
3105 AD, Omega Centauri, Throne  
  
Tenchi's throat was dry as he shook of the after effects of the hyperspace-jump. He was glad that Washuu's new FTL-drive worked like it was intended to, even in Omega Centauri. He gazed over to the glowing white sphere that floated near Tsunami. Even after ten years he still felt the overwhelming mental presence of the Nexus.  
  
The Nexus was a collective conscience of several hundred thousand sentient beings. It didn't need a material embodiment as the raw mental power held it together. Core of the Nexus were 35.000 humans who had parapsychical abilities and were forced to leave their bodies by a megalomaniac alien being. They hadn't be able to do anything against him and where assimilated by a chaotic, parasitic creature. After the destruction of the alien being the Core of the 35.000 human consciences had been left, the original Nexus. It had chosen to wander the universe and help others.   
  
A few years later the Nexus had helped during an invasion over in Andromeda. A few years later, the Nexus helped with an invasion in the Andromeda-galaxy, where it was forced to use almost all of it's energy. To support it, a group of about half a million natives then joined with the Nexus, making it into the powerful being, that now hovered on the bridge of the vessel.  
  
Space shook with gravitational and hyperdimensional waves of tens of thousands of ships rematerialized inside one light-minute around the Throne. In the end, about five million ships drifted in space around the flagship of the Juraian Empire. The majority of them, almost 99 percent, where civilian ships - commercial cruise ships, freighters and shuttles of almost any type known to the empire. The rest were military vessels of the Galaxy police, the Oni empire and the rest of the Juraian navy. Every now and then a ship was too damaged by the journey through hyperspace and exploded. Some of them jettisoned escape pods, which where then rescued by other ships.  
  
Tenchi closed his eyes. These ships were all that was left of the old interstellar states from before the expansion of the Solar Empire. And in them were the ten billion refugees. Now it was time to go look for a planet or two to create something like a Resistance. Omega Centauri was perfect for that. No one had ever entered this starcluster. No normal FTL-drive had been able to work near it and so no one ever bothered to go here. Only some tips from the Nexus had helped Washuu build her Hyperspace Jump Drive. Or Transition Device as the Nexus called it.   
  
The Throne started to gather status information from the ships of the Juraian Fleet, only 10.000 of them were left, who in turn got status information from the rest of the refugee fleet.  
  
One of the technicians turned to look at Tenchi.   
  
"Sir, we have five hundred contacts. They are on a stationary position a few light-minutes away from the fleet."  
  
"A few light-minutes?" Tenchi asked. He didn't like vague information.  
  
"I can't tell more. The data isn't accurate. There are too many subspace-anomalies in the area."  
  
Tenchi nodded.  
  
"Monitor them."  
  
The technician worked on his console and main view screen showed the fleet. The ships reminded Tenchi of over-dimensional pencils. For a few minutes nothing happened, other than the explosion of a few more 'scrap heaps'.  
  
"Sir, one of the ships tries to contact us. They are using a hyperspace channel."  
  
Tenchi nodded and a screen appeared in front of him. It showed the face of a being that looked like a giant frog. At first Tenchi could read surprise in its face, something he had learned while dealing with other non-human species. The surprise quickly turned to hate. Tenchi was surprised about it. The being then said something in a human-sounding language, before cutting the connection.  
  
Tenchi blinked and looked at his technicians and Washuu. They were working on their consoles to translate the words.  
  
A few minutes later they had the translation.  
  
"Lemurians, you better leave our space before we have to take more drastic measures. You have one hour."  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Present  
  
Ranma took a deep breath. He was still a little edgy about the fleet that had their weapons pointed at his ships. But there was a good thing. This Masaki was coming aboard the 'Marco Polo' to talk.  
  
Ranma had used the time to clean up and put on a fresh light-green coverall, something that was sort of a uniform aboard LFT-ships. One of the briefing rooms had been specially prepared. Now he stood in one of the empty hangars. Beside him only the people of his command crew were present.  
  
They looked as the shuttle landed inside the hangar that normally was occupied by a VESTA-cruiser. The airlock of the shuttle opened and a two armed guards came to line up next to the airlock. Masaki was the next to leave the shuttle, followed by Kiriaade, two other women and two men.  
  
Masaki went up to Ranma and they shook hands.  
  
"Welcome aboard the 'Marco Polo'."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"I have thought that a high member of the Resistance would come aboard."  
  
Masaki smiled.  
  
"And you have. I am the head of the Resistance."  
  
He pointed at the two women and than at the two men.  
  
"These are my wives Ayeka, head of the Fleet, and Ryoko, head of the Military Intelligence. Hiroshi Makasi, responsible for logistics. And Soval Miratek, the representative of the people native to Omega Centauri."  
  
Ranma just smiled and nodded.  
  
"My pleasure."  
  
He than went to introduce his staff.  
  
"Ian Zarkov, my XO, Mey-Lin'Hay, Operations officer, Nadja McIntrey, my Navigator and Helmsman, Jakus, my Head Engineer, my daughter Tijana, head scientist, and…"  
  
As he got to Hiroshi, he could see the people around Masaki tense.  
  
"…Hiroshi Yamasaki, head of the computer department."  
  
No one said anything for a few seconds.  
  
"I think we should get into one of the conference rooms."  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
3630 AD, somewhere in the Halo of the galaxy  
  
Slowly Ryo-Ohki made its way through this part of space. It had been some time since Ryoko left the security of Omega Centauri to scout out some highly secured systems, where normal Resistance scouts couldn't get in. In the last weeks they had found large amounts of ships transferred to a system in the Halo.  
  
A few hundred years ago the Empire had found this planet and the ruins there. A scientific station had been all there in the last centuries, but now they had built a large fleet base. The planet was too far out in the Halo and the next other system was 10.000 light-years distant.  
  
The sensor systems of Ryo-Ohki, build by Washuu after the last refit of Ryo-Ohki, scanned space and tried to find the reason why all these ships where here.  
  
Ryoko looked at the screen in front of her.  
  
"Nearly a quarter million ships," she muttered," A tenth of the imperial fleet."  
  
"Mya," Ryo-Ohki replied.  
  
Ryoko blinked, as another screen opened. It showed a second diagram, displaying a distant sector of the system. 1000 unknown ships just appeared there. Ryo-Ohki needed just a few seconds to show ten different diagrams of those ships.  
  
Each of the ships was basically a cube with two kilometers length. Hundreds of ledges, depressions, antennas and unidentified devices in the superstructure gave each of them a chaotic and unique appearance. At first, Ryoko thought that these ships where something from one of those old, hilarious earth Science-Fiction series.  
  
The Imperial fleet started to move. More than half of the ships powered up their shields and weapons, then accelerated and advanced toward the unknown cubes. As the Imperial vessels arrived at a distance of around 14 million kilometer to the other ships, they started to explode without warning.  
  
"MYA!"  
  
Ryoko was as shocked as Ryo-Ohki as she looked at the readout of the unknown ships. Every time when an Imperial ship blew up, her sensors read an energy spike that resembled the energy spike of the Conversion-cannon.  
  
As the first Imperial ships entered their weapons range, they delivered everything they were capable. The cubic ships just shrugged the energy of the weapons of as if the Imperials would throw stones at them, something only the Juraian ships could do. But other than with the Juraian ships, Ryo-Ohki's sensors didn't read any use of Juraian or similar energy.  
  
Two hours later the battle was over. The cubic ships had just destroyed every Imperial ship in the system and now moved to the planet to bombard it from orbit. Ryoko swallowed as Ryo-Ohki did a flyby through Subspace and made some pictures from the bombardment. Atomic mushrooms appeared everywhere and the entire surface of the planet was reduced to a giant see of molten rock.  
  
With these pictures and data Ryo-Ohki left the system.  
  
Two years later spies were able to get alarming news. The unknown enemy with the cubic ships, called Posbis by the Empire, was nothing more than an entire civilization of robots. These robots had a positronic main computer connected to a bio-plasma, giving them a limited ability to just override their programming and limited emotions. And the Empire had won their war with the Posbis by finding their main planet; a systemless single world in intergalactic space surrounded by hundreds of artificial suns, and simply reprogrammed them to do everything the Empire wanted them to do.  
  
With this victory the Empire had gained new space, were able to throw the Posbis into every war they wanted and the ability to patrol the halo of the galaxy. Attackers from outside the Galaxy would have more problems then before.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Present  
  
Ranma seemed to look at the people who were the head of the 'Resistance'. But he didn't look at them; he looked at the small patch of plants that was present in the briefing rooms of every LFT ship. More specially he looked at a small group of seven individually colored plants that looked much like tulips.  
  
He had just listened to the explanations of Masaki and Miratek. Ranma had become a good judge of character since he left this universe; he had to be as the commander of a space ship. He knew that something was fishy about Miratek and he looked at the 'tulips' waiting for them to do something.  
  
And one of them did. It moved its blossom and a single eye looked at Ranma.  
  
'You are right,' the telepathic voice of Long-Stem, the leader of the 'tulips', said,' He isn't was he seems to be.'  
  
Ranma frowned internally at the confirmation of the plant intelligences and was glad that he had asked them to monitor the emotions of the five 'Resistance'-heads. They were a group of plant-intelligences that had developed on a now destroyed planet. With seven different genders, these seven formed a family. For the most part, they were emphats, but when you let them, they could speak telepathically to you.  
  
How could he uncover what Miratek concealed?  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
3843 AD, somewhere in the Lesser Magellan Cloud  
  
Ryoko swallowed as she stared at the sensor display in front of her. The Empire had drawn nearly half of their fleet and half of the Posbi-ships in this single system, to end a war that had begun ten years ago. A fleet of unknown ships black spherical ships had assaulted earth, destroying a forth of the surface.  
  
They had called themselves 'Time Police', a group that hunted down any race who dared to play with time. It seemed that they had found out about the Time Gate. In the ten years of war, the 'Time Police' had destroyed a few dozen worlds and the Empire had hunted them down to the Magellan Clouds. At first the shielding of the black ships and the following red conic spaceships of the 'Time Police Chiefs', the head race of the 'Time Police', had been impenetrable, but then the scientists and mages on Mercury had created a device, which could weaken the shields. It was not much, but enough for an Imperial fleet to destroy a 'Time Police' fleet.  
  
And now the Empire had found the home system of the 'Time Police Chiefs'. The only problem with this system was the fact that the 'Time Police' had hid their homeworld in some sort of temporal pocket. At the moment the ships just sat there, waiting for the Sailor Senshi to finish their job of destroying whatever created the temporal pocket.  
  
Never in her live Ryoko had seen such a fleet. Nearly one million Imperial ships and a quarter million vessels of the reprogrammed robot civilization. This wouldn't be a battle, it would be carnage.  
  
Some time later a second fleet appeared from somewhere. A quarter million of the conical ships, accompanied by half a million of the black ships.  
  
It really resulted in a carnage that lasted for nearly six hours. After the battle and the destruction of the 'Time Police' fleet, the Imperial fleet had lost half of its ships and another quarter was in need of repairs. Just a short time later, a gas giant and its moons broke through space-time, reappearing in the system. A few thousand ships were destroyed, as they had occupied the space where the planet and the moons appeared.  
  
While defensive forts on the moons and in satellites started to fire upon the Imperial Fleet, the ships went into a formation around the moons, Ryoko had seen countless times. White energy fields snapped into existence between the ships and covered the moons. Ryoko closed her eyes as the moons were 'Cleansed' by the Empire.  
  
The fire from the moons and satellites ceased, as the 'Time Police' started to wonder why they even fought the Empire. The fleets over the moons now did their last thing in this system. Hundreds of thousands of thermonuclear, biological and chemical bombs were dropped from orbit onto the moons surface, destroying every single live forms on them, like they had done with several hundreds of worlds in both Magellan Clouds.  
  
Ryoko couldn't take it much longer. She let Ryo-Ohki plot a course out of the system and simply fled the field of slaughter. She never even noticed the hundred faint objects on the edge of the system.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Present  
  
Ranma looked at Miratek, trying to find a way to get him to talking. The information of the 'tulips' weren't really reassuring. All they could say was that Miratek wasn't what he seemed to be. And it didn't made sense. When Miratek was some sort of spy, Kiriaade would have known it.  
  
'I know it,' another telepathic said voice in his head,' I know that Miratek is a spy and everyone else knows too.'  
  
Ranma twitched as the voice said this. He wasn't prepared for another voice beside the voice of the 'tulips', but he knew that this was the voice of Kiriaade. And he was able to put two and two together and get four.  
  
'You use him to give false information to the Empire,' he thought.  
  
'Yes,' answered Kiriaade,' 'Topaz' is really useful for this.'  
  
He jerked back to reality when he heard Tijana asking something.  
  
"You mean, the Empire is in war with someone beside the Resistance for more than eight hundred years?"  
  
Masaki nodded.  
  
"Yes, they call themselves 'Masters of the Isle' and they are from Andromeda."  
  
The jaws of every LFT-member in the room hit the floor. Ranma had always been interested in the history of the LFT-universe, particularly the early years from the first moon landing in 1971 AD to the 'Second Genesis'-crisis in the 29th century AD. In 2400 AD, the terran fleet had found a artificially build constellation of suns near the center of the galaxy. During the examination of this discovery, terran ships where transported through the suns in the Andromeda galaxy, where a war started with the descendants of the Lemurian refugees, the so called "Masters of the Isle" The war ended in 2404 AD with the death of the last of nine 'Masters' and the destruction of the galacto-centric transmats in the Milky Way and Andromeda. It had been one of the biggest wars in terran history.  
  
Ranma swallowed. Now he could understand why the Empire wanted the LFT-technology. The 'Masters of the Isle' were monsters. But there was a problem. When they helped destroy the Empire, the 'Masters of the Isle' would be able to overrun the Milky Way and it would be a jump from the frying pan into the fire.  
  
Ranma's thoughts were interrupted as a call came through the ship internal communication. Ranma taped the sensor and opened the communications channel.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Commander, one of the 'Vesta's', the 'Unna', just entered Omega Centauri. It looks like they brought guests with them."  
  
Ranma blinked.  
  
"What guests?"  
  
"From the communiqué they are from the 'Republic'. The 'Vesta' will arrive in half an hour."  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Appendix:  
  
Intervall-cannon: A hyperdimensional weapon system that uses focused hyperdimensional waves to penetrate most energy shields and induce heavy mechanical stress to matter. The stress is great enough to pulverize the matter of the target, even when it is a very sophisticated alloy.  
  
Conversion-cannon: A weapon comparable to the Transform-cannon, but less sophisticated. This weapon has a lesser range, around 10 million kilometer, a lesser payload, maximum 1000 GT, and needs more energy.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
Next Time:  
  
The Hidden Republic 


	4. Chapter 4

New Shores  
  
AWarringer  
  
Disclaimer:   
  
Nothing in here belongs to me, except for the story.  
  
PERRY RHODAN belongs to the Pabel-Möwig-Verlagsunion.  
  
Ranma 1/2 belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.  
  
Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi.  
  
Tenchi Myou belongs to A. I. C. and to Pioneer.  
  
Homeworld, Homeworld: Cataclysm and Homeworld 2 belong to Sierra and Relic Entertainment.  
  
Star Trek belongs to the Gene Roddenberry.  
  
Infinity's Shore belongs to James Barnhill. I've used it with his permission.  
  
Chapter four  
  
The Hidden Republic  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
2017 AD, Solar System  
  
Slowly, the last shuttlecraft made its way toward the 'Odyssee'. Every seat in the new transathmospheric craft was occupied by a refugee. Almost 250.000 people where already aboard the 'Odyssee', filling every free space on board.  
  
The small ship looked almost like the „Sänger II", which was projected to be build in the last 20 years of the 20th century by a german corporation. The surface of the craft looked battered, thanks to a rogue pilot of the US Air Force, who tried to shoot it down shortly before it reached orbit.  
  
The refugees were lead to their place for the trip towards Epsilon Eridani after it had docked with the 'Odyssee' and the shuttlecraft itself was moved into the small hanger of the refugee-ship. Some Kilometers in the distance were two other ships, the 'Prometheus' and the 'Perseus'. They were only one year older than the 'Odyssee' and other than it not designed to carry any refugees.  
  
All three ships were fitted with an experimental Warp-drive, a fusion-reactor, fuel tanks and a few VASMIR-plasma-engines.  
  
The reason, this ships where built, was a comet on it's way to Earth – Loki, as the astronomers had called it. Their calculations prophesized a 99,9 percent chance to directly hit the earth and cause the end of human civilization by nuclear winter. The 'Prometheus' and the 'Perseus' had been build and fitted with the Warp-drive, to fly to Loki and either change his course or destroy him. But they failed. Noone had an explanation for it, but the nukes detonated in his way or even on his surface never did anything to him. No change of course or partial destruction of the nucleus.  
  
When Loki wasn't destroyed the 'Odyssee' was build in a unparalleled cooperation of nations and companies. Together with bunker-systems everywhere on earth, they became the only hope of mankind.  
  
Now the ship carried the refugees, enough resources to build a colony and the whole knowledge of humankind to a planet, the scientists hoped to exist in the Epsilon Eridani system.  
  
An hour after the last refugees had gotten to their places, the three ships left earth with Warp two and accelerated to Warp four when they left the Kuiper belt. They would need two days to Epsilon Eridani.  
  
But fate had other things in mind as the three ships encountered a spacial anomaly, a wormhole, which transported the ship to another part of the galaxy. During transit, the electronic systems of the ship where damaged and the ship crashed on a desert planet.  
  
Only 150000 of the colonists survived planetfall and had to struggle to survive. Nobody really knew who had the idea for the planets name or its real meaning. But Higaara became a synonym for exile and a new beginning.  
  
Seven light-years distant to the planet an inhabitant of a small village of kangaroo-like sentients discovered the procedure to create steel from iron with the help of coke.  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
1065 AKD, 2891 AD, Sola  
  
Neral slowly climbed down on the small ladder, which connected the cabin of his Lander with one of the legs. Everything happened in complete silence, the only sound he could hear, was the soft whine of the air-recycler and his own breath.  
  
"I'm on the last step," he said into his microphone.  
  
He jumped the last few centimeters from the last step of the ladder to the small disk that prevented the leg of the Lander to sink into the dusty surface. He looked down and bend his knees a bit to look at the upper part of the disk he was standing on. His long stiff tail went up to hold the balance.  
  
"Control, there is a bit dust on the disk."  
  
"Roger that, Neral."  
  
He took a deep breath. All of his training in the last few years had happened for this one moment. He lifted up his right leg and made a step forward, away from the Lander. His foot sunk just a few centimeters into the dusty surface and Neral let go of the breath he held.  
  
"This is just a small step for me, but a big step for all Naali."  
  
A thought went through his head. His superiors would dress him down for that, since they had expected some kind of nationalistic bullshit. Again he breathed in deep, knowing that 1.25 billion Naali were watching TV and witnessing that he was the first of them on Nasar, the inner of the two moons, and the first Naali to ever take a step on another celestial body. He turned around and looked at the red-brown-green marble just a bit over the horizon of Nasar.  
  
Time seemed to slow down for him as he just looked at the beautiful scene. Nasar in the middle, the Lander half left, the outer moon Miral, as a crescent, just a bit right of the day-night-terminator on Naal and the sun as a small dot on the upper left corner. He just pressed the trigger of the Hassel-camera mounted to the chest plate of his suit.  
  
"Beautiful," was all he could say and he just whispered it.  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
1179 AKD, 3005 AD, Sola  
  
Soral looked down the tube his team had melted into the ice of Miro. Miro was one of the three big moons of Colar, the biggest planet in the system, named after the Guard of the Dead in the Naali pantheon. Amongst the gods and heroes, Miro was the daughter of Colar and the mother of life in the water.  
  
Soral looked up and out of the icy dessert of Miro's surface. It was only been a matter of a few billion Sur to come here in the behalf of an eccentric multibillionaire who was obsessed with alien life. And Miro was the best candidate in the system. The gravitational forces of Colar were enough to melt the core of Miro and with that some of the ice to create a giant lake beneath the ice shell.  
  
Now, it was just a matter of time until the small sub found what they were searching for. He looked on the monitors and the blackness of the water. There was nothing that could reflect the light of the spotlights, yet.  
  
The door to the surveillance room was abruptly opened.  
  
"Doctor Soral," screamed a totally surprised assistant," We found something!"  
  
Soral turned away from the monitor and looked at his assistant. Alaf was a fairly normal Naali, even if he was a little bit on the short side and had a fur in a light red color. He anxiously waved his two arms around, while his tail bounced on the floor like an elastic ball.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"You should see this!"  
  
Soral shook his head and followed Alaf into a small laboratory. The assistant gestured frantically at a microscope, making Soral suspicious. This didn't stop him from looking into the small device.  
  
After a few seconds, he looked up, rubbed his eyes and looked again through the ocular.  
  
He flipped a switch on the microscope and a monitor displayed the picture of the object under the microscope. It showed a multitude of transparent spherical, elliptical and tube like one cell lifeforms.  
  
"You tested them?"  
  
Alaf nodded.  
  
"They are not related to anything in our database. We found alien life."  
  
One room away, the monitors of the small sub showed pictures of a swarm of molluskoid creatures. Their transparent bodies glowed in many varying colors and patterns. One of them moved closer to the sub and used two of it's tentacles to touch the sub. Its tentacles began to feel around on the sub and its body glowed in other patterns as before, answered by the other mollusks.  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
3245 AD, Higaara  
  
Martin Smith breathed in as his dessert-buggy shot over a dune. He really liked to drive this little bugger more than anything else. He was said to be the best driver in Kushan. All he needed to be happy were four wheels, a week supply of water and fuel, the dessert around him and a bit heavy metal music.  
  
Even with him being only a few hours away from the oasis of Kushan, the desert looked like it continued to the horizon. Two days further was Taidan, the nearest oasis to his home and their best trading partner. Kushan exchanged their high-end electronics with the fuel and water of Taidan. And ever since the people of Taidan begun to send small satellites into orbit, they where in dire need of the electronics. Higaara had become smaller since then.  
  
A streak of white went into the clear blue sky.  
  
'A new satellite from Taid,' Martin thought, 'I wonder when they send a person into space.'  
  
Ramstin was on full volume as Martins looked after a sandrunner herd. The group of one meter long, eight-legged and rod-like creatures were about to cross his course. The sudden static electricity in the air was enough to tell Martin that the herd was fleeing from a pack of sanddiggers, three meter long wormlike creatures that hadn't much taste for humans, thanks the ghosts of the dessert.  
  
A small flash of light in the distance let his trained eye wander. He saw something in a dune some hundred meters distant. Something reflected the sun and had caught the electricity of a sanddigger. Martin raised an eyebrow.  
  
'Maybe some adventurer who got lost in the dessert.'  
  
It didn't happen often, but sometimes dessert-junkies like Martin found missing people and their buggies or sandracers. In most cases they were dead and their bodies mummified, but the families paid good money to him, when he brought them back.  
  
He turned around and drove to the reflection. He stopped some meters away from it, shut down his buffy and jumped out. Slowly, he walked towards the reflecting object and spoke a short prayer to the ghosts of his ancestors. He hoped they kept the desert calm. Then he begun to brush away the sand of the visible parts of the object, he just found.  
  
After some minutes he was positive that this wasn't a buggy or a sandracer. It was just too big. He went back to his buggy, got a shovel and began to dig. Some time later he got away from the thing he dug free to get a good look.  
  
The object looked like some part of a nuclear train engine like it was used for oasis to oasis transport. But it seemed to be older and it had some kind of satellite dish on it. And he had never heard of something called UN, NASA or ESA.  
  
He scratched the back of his head. Maybe he should get back to Kushan and get some help. Yes, that sounded like a good plan. He went back to his buggy and drove towards home.  
  
Behind him, a drift of sand broke loose and a large name was to be seen on the object. 'Perseus' was to be read.  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
3291 AD, Higaara  
  
"All systems are working within nominal parameters," said the voice of the chief engineer of the 'Kuun-Lan'.  
  
Daniel Nokayashi breathed in deep, his gaze locked on the main monitor. It showed the brown-yellow sphere of his homeworld. He had to smile a bit as he thought about how many Higaari watched TV at exactly this moment.  
  
"Pull her out," he told his navigator, who nodded and began to work on his console.  
  
Nokoyashi loked around the bridge of his ship. Everything had a light beige color, since it helped soothing the nerves of the crew. And everything was relative new for them all. Just 56 years ago the wreck of an old space ship had been discovered near Kushan and this led to several changes on Higaara. Now they knew, that their ancestors came from the stars, but they didn't know why they had choosen a planet like Higaara to live on. The discovery caused the single communities to come together in a big assembly, to explore the ship of the ancestors and engage in the biggest project of Higaaran history – the step back to the stars.  
  
The first part had been the development of a one stage shuttlecraft, that/which could bring man and equipment into space. The building of a station in orbit was the next step, followed by the exploration of Karak, the small asteroid moon of their planet. In the following years, it was slowly changed into a shipyard for smaller ships.  
  
The 'Kuun-Lan' was just the first. A relative small cylindrical ship of 250 meter length and 40 meter diameter with four warp pylons in a X-shape and two warp cores. It simply was ingrained in the psyche of the Higaari that you had to build everything with at least double redundancy, in case your buggy died on you in the dessert. And because of this every nuclear train engine had two separate cooling circles.  
  
Nokayashi breathed in deep as the view switched back to a frontal view of the docking port. The clamps had moved back and the 'Kuun-Lan' pulled free from the port.  
  
"Maneuvering thrusters only. When we are in a save distance, full power on the main engines."  
  
The sublight engines where a somewhat sore spot to the Higaari engineers. … They where only powerful enough to accelerate the 'Kuun-Lan' to two Gravos and they used way too much fuel. When using full power, the hydrogen-tanks of the ship where empty after four hours. If the ship had the external fuel-pods attacked, it might add up to one day. He offered prayers to his ancestors and hoped that the rumors about an 'impulse-engine', developed by the Kushan engineers where true.  
  
The 'Kuun-Lan' had reached a distance of one kilometer to the port and had turned around. Seven opening in the stern of the ship began to glow blue, as stream hydrogen plasma shot into the vacuum of space, leaving a blue glowing cone of hundred meter length and two hundred meter diameter behind.  
  
"Everything looks normal."  
  
Nokayashi nodded.  
  
"Once we reach a distance of 1000 kilometer we go to Warp one."  
  
"Course, Commander?"  
  
Nokayashi smiled and pointed at the view screen.  
  
"Second star to the left…"  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
1466 AKD, 3292 AD, Sola  
  
Serak looked a bit fearful at the cylindrical shape that just appeared near his freighter. He just wanted to get his freight from an asteroid mine back to Naal. He just hoped that those weren't pirates. He hated pirates. They would shoot at his ship, cut a hole in it and steal his freight. He closed his eyes and activated the new Laser-defense-grid he bought when he last was on Naal. If the other ship wanted to attack him, they where in for a rude surprise.   
  
Only a small part of his psyche wondered if that ship was maybe a top secret military project. He had to shut his eyes as a powerful spotlight shone on his ship.  
  
What were those guys on that ship? Blind? He had all marking-lights the law stated. Why would they need a spot light.  
  
'Is something the matter, Captain?' a telepathic voice asked.  
  
Serak closed his eyes again. The passenger. He had completely forgotten that a Nendo-Kata floated inside a bubble of water in his only passenger cabin. It seemed like she had sensed his worry. He even could hear the bubble of water behind himself. He turned around.  
  
"Ack!"  
  
A bubble of water hung in the air behind him, containing a transparent, in all colors glowing shape with ten tentacles.Even after all these years of contact with the Nendo-Kata, he was scared every time he saw one of these female mollusks for a moment. He breathed in deep.  
  
"Sorry, you surprised me, that's all."  
  
He could see the Nendo-Kata moving around to look out of a view-port.  
  
'You are surprised about that ship,' she stated.  
  
"Well…"  
  
'Don't worry. Those are no pirates.'  
  
Serak blinked.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
Had the Nendo-Kata been able to smile, she would have done it.  
  
'The people aboard that ship are curious, that's all.'  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
3341 AD, Planet Tramp, 13 Light-years distant to Higaara  
  
Samantha Nadir breathed in deep as her gaze went over the dunes and small hills around the base. It was like on Higaara, but at the same time felt scary for her Nendo-Kata part. She had crossed over a few years ago, when an accident with a hovercar would have cost her life –instead she was offered a second chance.  
  
She looked around. The two ships, the Higaaran ship "Ferin Sha" and the Naali vessel "Sorbal" entered orbit of the planet. They where busy building a small, scientific station to explore the planet – a prerequisite for colonization, even if the athmosphere where a little bit thin. The station would check the planet for hardous life like viruses and bacteria.  
  
A movement somewhere behind a rock, combined with a slight emotion of curiousness, caught her eye. She smiled. Maybe it was a native life-form? She walked over to the rock and the feeling remained. As she looked behind it she could only say one sentence.  
  
"Oh, how cute!"  
  
The life-form behind the rock was about one meter in height and had brown fur. The face and ears looked like that of a mousse, but it had only one gnaw tooth. The tail was flat and looked like a ladle. It sat there on its hind-legs and looked at her with two curious black eyes. All in all it was really cute.  
  
But said life-form just now fumed. It hadn't understood a word of what Samantha said, but it had been able to interpret her thoughts, as it was both intelligent and telephatic.  
  
'What?!' It thought,' I'm cute? Cute? Plofre, the manliest man in the group, cute?'  
  
But before Plofre could do anything, Samantha was down on her knees and acted like a young girl. She hugged him and started to scratch him behind his ears.  
  
'What is she doing? I should…'  
  
He mentally stopped, because the scratching started to take effect.  
  
'… just sit here and enjoy. Ahhh, this feels good…'  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
3390 AD, Mining Colony 112, 50 Light-years distant to Higaara  
  
Slowly the 'Koon Lan' made its way towards the colony. She was a long distance freighter, able to transport up to 500 million tons of any material with Warp 6 over the 50 light-years to Higaara. She may have been only a freighter, but that didn't mean that she was defenseless. Two 'Buster' fighters and the three duo disruptors packed enough firepower to fight back most pirates. The tour Colony 110 - Colony 111 - Colony 112 – Higaara was the normal for this vessel and now she transported four additional Busters to Colony 112, since the administrator of the station, a Naali, had requested backup because of several pirate ships in a neighbor system.  
  
"Colony 112, this is the 'Koon Lan'. We request docking permission for Pylon Alpha."  
  
"Roger that, 'Koon Lan'. You have permission to dock on Pylon Alpha. Good to see you."  
  
"Thank you 112. 'Koon Lan' out."  
  
Colony 112 was one of maybe 150 mining colonies throughout known space, a sphere of maybe 60 light-years diameter, with only four intelligent races. The Higaari, the Naali, the Nendo-Kata and the Ilt, a recent addition from the planet Tramp.  
  
Colony112 was built into a large asteroid of about 25 kilometers length and nearly 10 kilometers height. It could house a crew of 15.000 miners, technicians and their family. Most of the personal worked on some of the other asteroids, mining their resources. As the "Koon Lan" arrived to supply the colony with essential supplies, it was always a reason for the people to throw a party to break the boring day-to-day life of the next few month. On the way back to Higaara, the shop carried refined metals and a few dilithium crystals, the miners had found.   
  
A few minutes after the freighter had docked at one of the pylons and the first of the fighters was being unloaded, a gravitation spike hit the asteroid. Two million kilometers from the asteroid, a large ship materialized. It had a length of nearly 1.5 kilometers and looked like some kind of freighter. It didn't seem to have warp nacelles – at least neither the normal sensors nor the optical systems of the station could detect something. What they found was a large, glowing hole at one side of the ship. Somehow, it looked as if a big asteroid had hit the ship. A Pirate raid was also a possibility.  
  
The reaction from Colony 112 was a standard procedure. All Busters left their hangars and flew towards the freighter to identify the vessel. They were followed by some shuttles after the fighters had identified several docking-points.  
  
The reaction of the freighters crew was alarming. As they saw their first helper, a Naali, they ran away screaming.  
  
-----------------------------------.  
  
3451 AD, debris field GP-HQ, 4500 Light-years distant to Higaara  
  
Several wings of Busters flew perimeter patrol around the debris field, that had been the Headquarters of Galaxy Police and it's defensive fleet just a few hundred years ago. Near the center of the debris field, warships secured a second perimeter. It was the largest collection of military hardware ever leaving republican space.  
  
After the 'First Contact' with the Solar Empire freighter sixty years ago, the loose federation of Higaari, Naali, Nendo-Kata and Ilt had grown closer and formed the Republic, a democratic interstellar state. The sole purpose of the Republic was to stay hidden from the eyes of the Solar Empire and to form a defense fleet to defend the citizens from genocide or worse.  
  
In response to their obvious xenophobic counterpart, the fleet doctrine had changed tremendously. Gone where the small ships and fighters to fend off poorly outfitted pirates. Instead, new types of vessels had been developed by the Higaari and Naali in their races typical design. Large battleship with a cylindric body, equipped with four warp-nacelles for the Higaari and flat, boxlike ships with internal warp-engines for the Naali.  
  
Two Naali carriers floated near the main ship of the fleet, a large Naali mobile dock. Two large battle cruisers, five destroyers and thirty frigates of both Higaari and Naali design secured the inner perimeter. Jamming and scanning probes floated near large pieces of debris to further secure the fleet. A fleet of shuttles moved to and from the biggest piece of the former Galaxy Police Headquarters. They shipped hordes of scientists and engineers between the wreckage and the dock of the republic vessels.  
  
General Gregory Sandoval looked out of a large window at the dock into the main bay, where the wreck of a GP cruiser was held by tractor beams. Surprisingly, the ship was almost intact and had suffered only minor damage. Some movement from behind alerted him to the presence of one of his few close friends and his Adjutant.  
  
Without turning around, he said: „Somehow, I have the feeling that we need to get away from here as fast as possible."  
  
The Ilt walked up and looked out of the window.  
  
"And you want to know what I think about it?"  
  
Sandoval nodded.  
  
"I think we should follow your feeling," the Ilt said," It had never been wrong in the past. Remember the ship graveyard near Tarsonis? We got away before an Emire patrol stopped there. I wonder if they found out that one of the wooden ships was missing?"  
  
Sandoval nodded again. That had been a close call. He'd rather been eaten by a sanddigger than be caught by an Empire patrol.  
  
"Give out an order to the fleet. We pack up and leave ASAP."  
  
The Ilt just nodded and disappeared with a 'Plop' as he teleported to the comm-center of the dock. Sandoval just looked out of the window at the wreck. He hoped that this piece of technology would help the republican armament.  
  
Half an hour later the battle ships were gone into a defensive pattern around the dock. They accelerated as slowly as the dock and engaged their Warp-drives as their speed was half the speed of light. With a flash of light the ships were gone, flying to Higaara at the fleets current best speed. Only five minutes after the ships entered Warp a patrol of ten Imperial ships left hyperspace.  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
3631 AD, somewhere in deep space  
  
Brigadier General Dirk Zarek looked at his Datapad. The ship under his command was monitoring one of the many patrols of the Solar Empire. Using its Transwarp Drive and the Hyperspace Radar, it was an easy thing to do. Even the current speed of 5 million times of the speed of light, there was no problem, to keep track of the enemy ships.  
  
His ship was the pride of the whole Republican Fleet. The up-to-date only Stealth Battle Cruiser, named 'Shadow Warrior'. The ship was specially designed to be as inconspicuous as possible, while remaining powerful.   
  
It had the general shape of a Higaaran ship and with a length of four kilometers and a diameter of 640 meters it was the biggest ship that ever left the Tanis space-dock.  
  
Thick protection screens, doubling as armor, held every single particle and radiation from the ships system inside. An energy-hungry Gravimetric Drive was used to accelerate the ship during stealth-mode, while a normal, high-powered Impulse drive moved the ship at normal mode. Six Warp-cores and twenty fusion reactors powered the ships driving, weapon and shielding systems.  
  
For defense it had three layers of multi-spacial shielding, ablative armor over the radiation screens of the stealth system and multiple Phalanx-defense turrets against missiles or torpedoes. The weaponry consisted of multiple Phasor and Disruptor banks, four heavy Ion-beam-turrets and several Torpedo-launchers.  
  
But the most sophisticated system was a biological computer; R&D had developed using biological material from a tree that grew inside one of the wrecks they had researched. The computer had even developed its own personality. It was named 'Jason'.  
  
His orders where simple: Follow the Imperial patrol and monitor their movement.   
  
And they did it now for the second month. The enemy ship went through the same route the third times and nothing had happened, beside a stop of an depot to get new supplies.  
  
A Naali Lieutenant burst into the room.  
  
"General, Sir, the patrol had just changed course."  
  
Zarek raised an eyebrow. That was unusual. Normally the patrol would get through their route with the punctuality of a computer. Something big had happened.  
  
"Did Captain Novik give order to follow them?"  
  
"Yes, Sir."  
  
"Then I will be on the bridge in a few minutes."  
  
"Yes, Sir."  
  
The Naali left his room. Zarek leaned back a few seconds later, deep in thought. He was startled back into reality a short time later, when a voice from his communications console broke his train of thoughts.  
  
"General," the voice said," We have entered the Semarev System. It looks like the Patrol ships were expected."  
  
Zarek blinked once. Then he stood up.  
  
"Thank you, Jason," he said to the voice.  
  
"No problem, General."  
  
He left the room and entered the bridge. Captain Novik, a young Ilt, sat in his command chair. His gaze was locked at the main screen, where a tactical diagram was displayed. More than 10.000 ships were gathered around the only colonized world in this system. Republican scouts had already monitored this system a few years ago. The colonized planet, Sema, had a medium industry that was specialized in building positronic microchips for the Low-cost-segment, like other planets in the galaxy.  
  
Zarek wondered why so many ships were needed here, when the answer came to him. Ten ships of an unknown configuration just appeared from nowhere. Every ship was loosely cubic with a length of two kilometer. Hundreds of ledges and depressions covered the ships and gave them a chaotic appearance. Not one ship looked like the other.  
  
The Intel and scientific departments immediately started to gather and analyze the data streams they got from the passive scans. Just as the battle between the unknown ships and the Imperial started, the first analysis was displayed in a small window on the tactic diagram.  
  
The appearance of the ships was accompanied by a large burst of chonotronic particles, indicating that the ships seemed to have use some kind of temporal field. Even now it was activated, leaving the ship in a state of temporal flux, making them virtually indestructible.  
  
Another analysis displayed everything they could gather of the weapon the cubic ships used. A dual durst of hyperdimensional energy indicated some kind of hyperjump system that was used to deliver a thermonuclear bomb through the targeted ships shields.  
  
Two hours later the battle was over and the cubic ships laid waste to Sema. Zarek reacted pragmatic like usual. His mission had just ended itself and the R&D-departments back home needed to get the data, they had just gathered.  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
3843 AD, somewhere in the Lesser Magellan Cloud  
  
The 2nd Recon Fleet of the Free Republic waited just outside the Enemy System, as it was called by the Empire. One hundred ships of different classifications were part of this fleet, but all had one thing in common, the highly sophisticated passive stealth-system that had been developed from the older systems of the 'Shadow Warrior', a little more than two hundred years ago.  
  
The job of the 2nd Recon was simple. They just had to monitor a battle between the 'Time Police' and the Empire, gathering more and more data about Imperial ships, development and tactics.  
  
General Don Fraiser sat in his seat and stared at the hologram in front of him. He swore as he saw the sheer number of ships the Empire would throw into this one and last battle of the war against the 'Time Police'. He knew that High Command feared that the Empire would gather the technology of their enemies and integrate it somehow into their own, like they had done, to a small part, with the Posbi's technology. They were especially glad that the Empire never had bothered to copy the Posbi Transition cannon.  
  
"Can I get a magnification of Quadrant Beta-Four-Nine?"  
  
The Intelligence of his ship reacted and the quadrant in question was magnified in another hologram. Fraiser looked at the new holo display. It showed a part of the Imperial fleet, more exactly a part of the fleet that consisted of several thousand contacts that hadn't been identified, but emitted imperial IFF-signals.  
  
"I want one of the fast scouts to get high-resolutions scans of those ships."  
  
One of the communications technicians nodded and one of the ships separated from the fleet and accelerated to warp. It was a small vessel that mainly consisted of passive high-resolution scanners that used the active scanner beams of other ships to scan. While in Warp, it activated its cloaking device and moved slightly out of phase, enough to not be noticed.  
  
Only ten thousand kilometer distant to one of the new ships it dropped out of warp and started to scan. Just as it had finished its scans the ships started to move and the battle began. The scout warped back to its fleet and transmitted the data to Fraiser's ship.  
  
Just a few moments later the data appeared as a hologram in front of Fraiser. The new ships were higher developed than other Imperial ships. They were developed from the Imperial Heavy Cruiser and Fraiser knew that this were just the first production models. Several of the systems were adapted from the Posbis, but they still lacked the Transition cannon.  
  
Fraiser looked back at the other holograms. The battle was going on with full force. The weapons of the 'Time Police' pulled at the space-time and opened rifts into hyperspace where several hundreds of the imperial ships cased to be, ripped apart by the energies of hyperspace. Other ships were simply reduced to dust as their shields started to vibrate with such force that the ships acted as resonance body.  
  
Fraiser idly wondered if there would be any wrecks that could be used to study the weapons and shield of the 'Time Police'.  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
Present, 1324 NGZ, 4912 AD, Sola  
  
Duty in one of the central systems of the Republic was one of the most laid back jobs in the Republican fleet. Nothing happened beside the occasional ships hit by asteroids.  
  
"Freighter 'Varn Kun', you are cleared to land on Naal. Control out."  
  
"Roger that, Naal-Control. 'Varn Kun' out."  
  
Freighters and private ships entered and left the system every minute, while they were monitored by defensive satellites and stations all over the system. It was normal for captains of Republican to be controlled everywhere. They remained their rights, but the fear to be found by the Empire was everywhere, from the democratic government down to the small time employee or worker.  
  
"This is Battle Cruiser 'Soval', requesting vector for leaving Miro Central."  
  
"Battle Cruiser 'Soval', use vector zero-zero-one to leave Miro Central."  
  
One percent of the whole Republican fleet, twenty-five thousand ships of all classes were stationed in the System and a tenth of the system fleet was always on patrol through the system. The rest of the ships were stationed near the rest of Republican Space. With 250 systems, 600 planets, some of them terraformed, and countless colonized moons, asteroids and space stations the space of the Republic had a spherical shape with a hundred light years diameter.  
  
Everything was in peace, but like always it was to end some time. And this time was now, as a spherical ship of one hundred meter diameter left hyperspace just outside the orbit of Colar. The whole system fleet was alarmed and every vessel on patrol left their patrol-routes to enter warp and appear right in front of the unknown ship. Everyone in the fleet knew that this ship wasn't an Imperial cruiser, but it also wasn't a Resistance vessel.  
  
A few minutes nothing happened, besides ships dropping out of warp. Than a communication was established, showing a nervously sweating human.  
  
"This is Michael Schneider of the 'Vesta'-cruiser 'Unna'. Uhm… We come in peace?"  
  
A few hours later the 'Unna' left the system with a delegation of the Republic aboard, speeding towards Omega Centauri.  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
Authors Notes:  
  
The forms of the space ships:  
  
The Higaari ships look like ships from 'Crest of the Stars' and the Naali ships look like the Higaari ships from 'Homeworld 2'. ^_^  
  
The Transition cannon is the same as the Transform cannon, it's just another term for the same weapon.  
  
BTW, I have the permission to use the Nendo-Kata.  
  
-----------------------------------.   
  
Next Time:  
  
Operation D-Day 


End file.
